Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Camerlengo of the Apostolic Chamber, introduced the dying of Pope Francis from the Casa Santa Marta in Vatican Metropolis on Monday.
Vatican Pool/Getty Photos
cover caption
toggle caption
Vatican Pool/Getty Photos
Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who introduced Pope Francis’ dying on Monday morning, is now the appearing head of the Vatican till a brand new pope is elected.
There is a title for the individual with that job: the camerlengo.
In accordance to Britannica, the cardinal camerlengo in Roman Catholicism is a key dignitary of the Vatican who’s personally appointed by the pope and tasked with “a specific series of functions in the crucial time of transition from one pope to his successor.”
These duties embody verifying the pope’s dying, destroying the late pope’s symbolic fisherman ring and getting ready the conclave, the method by which a brand new pope is elected.
Farrell, a Dublin-born, naturalized U.S. citizen, held a sequence of positions on the Vatican earlier than Pope Francis nominated him because the camerlengo in 2019. This is what to learn about him.
He spent a lot of his profession within the U.S.
Farrell, 77, was born in September, 1947 in Dublin, and after finishing secondary college went on to attend the College of Salamanca in Spain and the Pontifical Gregorian College in Rome.
He was ordained a priest on Dec. 24, 1978, and commenced his profession serving as chaplain on the College of Monterrey in Mexico. He moved to the U.S. to affix the Archdiocese of Washington in 1984, in accordance with his Vatican biography.
Farrell held a sequence of positions in a number of parishes within the space, together with director of the Spanish Catholic Heart, appearing government director of the Catholic Charitable Organizations and secretary for monetary affairs.
Pope John Paul II appointed Farrell as an auxiliary bishop of Washington in 2001. He served as Washington’s moderator of the curia and chief vicar normal till 2007, when he was appointed bishop of Dallas.
He rose rapidly by means of the ranks on the Vatican
In 2016, Pope Francis appointed Farrell because the prefect of the newly established Dicastery for Laity, Household and Life.
“My administrative assistant, came in and said, ‘The Pope’s on the telephone, and I felt like saying, ‘Yeah, yeah,'” Farrell mentioned at a press convention on the time, in accordance with the native NBC affiliate. “Eventually she did put on the Pope, and he told me that he would like me to go to Rome because Dallas needed a much better Bishop than I am.”
The pope named Farrell a cardinal later that very same yr, and continued to raise him to positions within the Vatican.
He was nominated as camerlengo in 2019, appointed as president of the Fee for Confidential Issues in 2020 and appointed as president of the Vatican Metropolis State Supreme Court docket efficient January 2024.
He has weathered controversies over time
Farrell has been in shut proximity to scandal — and scandalous figures — throughout his profession.
Notably, from 2002 to 2006, he labored and lived with Theodore McCarrick, a once-powerful Catholic cardinal who was defrocked by Pope Francis in 2019 after a Vatican investigation decided he had molested adults and youngsters.
After these allegations got here to mild in 2018, Farrell publicly mentioned he had not recognized or suspected something about McCarrick’s conduct.
Additionally in 2018, Farrell was criticized for allegedly barring a bunch known as Voices of Religion from holding its fourth annual Ladies’s Day occasion contained in the Vatican.
Some folks, together with members of the group, believed the rationale was that a number of of the would-be audio system — together with former Irish President Mary McAleese — overtly supported same-sex marriage, amongst different points.
When requested in regards to the controversy at an unrelated occasion weeks later, Farrell didn’t go into a lot element in regards to the purpose behind his resolution.
“Having been told subsequently that I did sponsor that event and having been told subsequently what the event was about, it was not appropriate for me to continue to sponsor such an event,” he mentioned, in accordance with the French newspaper LaCroix Worldwide. “Obviously, when I withdrew the sponsorship of the event it couldn’t be inside the Vatican.”
Farrell has mentioned publicly that whereas the church can’t bless same-sex unions, that nobody must be excluded from the “pastoral care and love of the Church.”
Might Farrell be the subsequent pope?
Farrell’s place as camerlengo does not inherently disqualify or prime him for the place of pope.
The Occasions stories that solely two camerlengos have been elected pope earlier than: Gioacchino Pecci, as Pope Leo XIII in 1878, and Eugenio Pacelli, as Pope Pius XII in 1939.
There has by no means been a pope from Eire or the U.S.
