Who Fired the Cardinal?

There seemed -- to the outside world, at least -- nothing exceptional about the announcement last February. The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano reported that Giacomo Cardinal Lercaro had resigned as Archbishop of Bologna "for reasons of advanced age and health." Although he looked healthy enough, Lercaro was slightly over 75, the Pope's proposed optimum retirement age for bishops. The cardinal, moreover, had accordingly submitted his resignation to the Pope, which had initially been turned down.

But did Lercaro retire -- or was he pushed out of office? According to a bestselling new Italian book called // Cardinale Destituito (The Deposed Cardinal), Lercaro was in fact the victim of a plot by a cabal of reactionaries on the Vatican Curia in league with conservative laymen. The author, Father Lorenzo Bedeschi of the University of Urbino, charges that high-ranking prelates took advantage of Pope Paul's illness to whisk an old enemy out of office.

Friendly Dialogue. By their standards, at least, the conservatives had some reason to want the cardinal to retire. One of the most progressive members of the Italian hierarchy, Lercaro had first seriously irritated them by siding with northern European liberals as a moderator of Vatican II. Later as president of the Vatican's postconciliar commission on liturgical reform, he was an ardent advocate of vernacular Masses and more simplified rites. Although a militant anti-Communist himself, Lercaro had shown his willingness to open up a friendly dialogue with the Communist leadership of his heavily industrial "Red belt" city. This dialogue, his opponents felt, might have aided the Communists in last May's parliamentary election.

According to Bedeschi, two events triggered Lercaro's removal. His good friend and protector, Archbishop Angelo Dell'Acqua of the Vatican secretariat of state, was named a cardinal and transferred to a more prestigious but less influential post. And Pope Paul, who also greatly admired Lercaro, had to cut down on his work load and leave many decisions to others. Backed up by a dossier of alleged complaints against Lercaro--including anonymous letters accusing him of financial incompetence--Monsignor Ernesto Civardi of the Curia visited Lercaro's villa last January and told him that the Pope had decided to accept his resignation. Lercaro humbly agreed to retire, and set the date.

In March, Lercaro finally obtained a private audience with Pope Paul. The cardinal declared that he accepted the retirement order in a spirit of obedience, but also pointed out, that the charges of fiscal mismanagement were totally untrue: despite a vast church-building program, his archdiocese had a $600,000 surplus when he left his post. And his liturgical reforms, Lercaro added, were clearly within the spirit of the Second Vatican Council. Apparently, the Pope was convinced that Lercaro had been wronged. Although it was impossible to restore him to his archdiocese, Paul named Lercaro as the pontifical legate to the recent Eucharistic Congress in Bogota. And at a general audience last month, he went out of his way to shower Lercaro with effusive compliments, assuring him of papal "devotion, esteem and affection."

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