Everything about In Pectore totally explained
In pectore (
Latin for "in the breast/heart") is a term used in the
Roman Catholic Church to refer appointments to the
College of Cardinals by the
pope when the name of the newly appointed cardinal isn't publicly revealed (it is reserved by the pope "in his bosom"). This right of the pope is rarely exercised, usually in circumstances where the pope wanted to make a statement for later historians about the honor due to a cleric, but didn't want to endanger that same cleric in his present circumstances of persecution.
Cardinals appointed
in pectore are not necessarily informed of their status. Such an appointee can't function as a cardinal until his appointment is publicly announced, but once announced he enjoys seniority in the College calculated from the time of his appointment rather than from the announcement of that fact.
Popes may choose to keep cardinals' identities secret out of consideration for:
- The person's personal safety, when they live under regimes hostile to Catholicism, Christianity, or religion in general.
- The safety of the person's community, when it's feared that the public naming of a cardinal may lead to discrimination or hostility against Christians in general and/or Catholics in particular.
In pectore cardinals are eligible to participate in
papal conclaves only if they're publicly named by the pope before his death. If he doesn't reveal their names, their cardinalate ceases upon the appointing pontiff's death. Three popes,
Benedict XIV,
Gregory XVI and
Pius IX, were originally created as cardinals
in pectore but all were published quite soon afterward.
Among areas where it's believed that
in pectore cardinals, whose names were not later revealed, were named include the
People's Republic of China and, before the
fall of the Soviet Union and collapse of the
Iron Curtain, in
central and
Eastern Europe.
History
Origins
In the early history of cardinals, all cardinals appointed were published as a matter of course. The first pope to appoint a cardinal
in pectore was
Pope Paul III, when he named
Girolamo Aleandro in this fashion on
December 22,
1536, presumably because Aleandro's life would have been in danger if he were named a cardinal. Cardinal Aleandro was published on
March 13,
1538. Paul III named five other cardinals
in pectore, but all of them were published relatively soon after being originally named.
The first Pope to create a cardinal
in pectore without later publishing his name was
Pope Pius IV, on
February 26,
1561. Historians have always speculated about who unpublished
in pectore cardinals were, and it's generally believed that this first unpublished
in pectore cardinal was
Daniele Matteo Alvise Barbaro, whose appointment as a cardinal would have upset the English monarchy and caused hostilities unwanted by the pope.
Although
in pectore appointments were not uncommon in the
17th century, all such appointments were published soon after being made until 1699, when
Pope Innocent XII reserved two cardinals that were never published. This trend continued until
April 26,
1773, when
Pope Clement XIV created as many as
eleven cardinals
in pectore but none were published.
Late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
As anti-Catholic hostility among various governments became common,
in pectore appointments became much more common during the late
18th and
19th centuries. Whereas before 1777 all unpublished
in pectore appointments had occurred because the pope making them died soon after, on June 23 of that year
Pope Pius VI created two cardinals
in pectore and never revealed their names in the remaining 22 years of his papacy. He did the same seven years later for another cardinal.
Pope Pius VII created eleven cardinals
in pectore; despite the anti-Church hostility of the
French Revolution, all of them were eventually published, as were
Pope Leo XII's three
in pectore appointments.
The outbreak of major revolutions in
Europe during the late 1820s, however, caused the proportion of
in pectore appointments to all cardinal appointments to rise dramatically:
Pope Pius VIII created thirteen cardinals, but only five of them were ever published, whilst
Pope Gregory XVI created as many as
twenty-eight cardinals out of a total of eighty
in pectore (of which five were unpublished).
After the
Revolutions of 1848 subsided,
in pectore appointments declined. Pius IX made only five such appointments out of 123 cardinals (all published within four years of creation), whilst
Pope Leo XIII named only seven cardinals out of 147
in pectore of whom all were subsequently revealed.
Modern Papacy
The only
in pectore appointment by
Pope Pius X,
António Mendes Belo, was due to the revolution in
Portugal in 1910 and was revealed shortly before Pius died.
World War I similarly produced
Benedict XV's only
in pectore cardinal,
Adolf Bertram, who was published after the war ended and became a vigorous opponent of
Nazism.
Pope Pius XI created only one cardinal
in pectore,
Federico Tedeschini (who was
nuncio to
Spain just before the
Spanish Civil War) in 1933 (published 1935). Neither Pius XI or
Pope Pius XII made any
in pectore appointments in European countries affected by the possibility of
Marxist revolutions and/or
World War II.
With the threat of Communism lingering over
Eastern Europe and other parts of the globe,
Pope John XXIII made three
in pectore appointments on March 28, 1960 and never published them, creating the only case of such an appointment expiring during the twentieth century. It is probable according to many sources that one was Cardinal Slipyj, (re-)created cardinal and published by Paul VI in 1965. Pope Paul VI made three
in pectore appointments but eventually published all of them, including one (
Iuliu Hossu) who had already died.
Pope John Paul I created no cardinals, whilst Pope John Paul II named four cardinals out of 232
in pectore, of whom all but one were subsequently revealed:
Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei, Bishop of Shanghai, People's Republic of China - made cardinal 1979, revealed 1991, died 2000.
Marian Jaworski, Archbishop of Lviv, Ukraine - made cardinal 1998, revealed 2001.
Jānis Pujāts of Riga, Latvia - made cardinal 1998, revealed 2001.
The fourth cardinal was created in 2003. John Paul II didn't reveal this cardinal's identity prior to his death, or in the 15-page testament he wrote during his papacy and which was released after his death. Consequently, this cardinalate has expired. Some suspect that this "secret Cardinal" was Archbishop Stanisław Dziwisz, a close, longtime friend of John Paul II. However, he was made a cardinal at the March 24, 2006 consistory anyway, as has been announced by Benedict XVI on February 22, 2006. In February 2005, there was also a speculation that the in pectore cardinal was Joseph Werth, a German-born archbishop of Novosibirsk, Russia (See Moscow News article below).
Term usage
Other than its religious meaning and origin, nowadays in pectore is basically used to refer to either something kept hidden or unrevealed or an expected, but still not official, appointment to an office (especially in politics).
The Italian language version of the phrase – in petto – is also commonly used.
Further Information
Get more info on 'In Pectore'.
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