CARDINAL GASPARRI RESIGNS HIS POST.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18960, 6 January 1930, Page 9

CARDINAL GASPARRI RESIGNS HIS POST.

PAPAL SECRETARY SUFFERS ILL-HEALTH

(United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) LONDON, January 5. His Holiness the Pope has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, Pontifical Secretary of State, owing to ill-health. It is expected that Cardinal Pacelli, ex-Nuncio at Berlin, will succeed him.

Cardinal Pietro Gasparri was born at Capovalazza in May, 1852. He studied at the Nepi Seminary and at Rome, obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Theology and Canon Law. He went to Paris as professor of Canon Law at the Catholic Institute, remaining there until 1898, when he was created titular Bishop of Caesarea and appointed apostolic envoy to Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia In 1901 he became secretary to the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, and did the lion’s share of the codification of the canon law which was then in progress. On the completion of this work in 1916 he received the dignity of Camerlengo. When Benedict XV. became Pope in 1914 he appointed Cardinal Gasparri Secretary of State, and the Cardinal was confirmed in this office by Pope Pius Xl.—an unusual occurrence. In 1926 the Mussolini Press attacked Cardinal Gasparri, whose resignation they demanded, accusing him of having formed the Popular Party and kept it in opposition to Fascism. The Pope in reply addressed a letter to the Cardinal expressing full confidence in him, this being the first occasion on which the Pontiff came out openly against the Dictatorship. In April, 1928, Cardinal Gasparri asked the Pope to relieve him of his functions, one reason being that his post had become superfluous. In May Cardinal Gasparri sent a circular to the members of the Pope’s Noble Guard, demanding their resignation from the Catholic Centre Party, a Fascist body. This was regarded as a retaliation for Mussolini’s order disbanding the Catholic Boy Scout troops.