Cardinal Loris Capovilla, who has died aged 100, was the oldest member of the College of Cardinals and lived long enough to see a pope who revived the style and aims of Pope John XXIII, known as “The Good Pope”, for whom Capovilla had been secretary decades before.
Loris Capovilla was born at Pontelungo, near Padua, on October 14 1915. His father, a clerk, died at the age of 37 and the family eventually moved to Mestre, the landlocked part of Venice.
Capovilla was ordained a priest of the Patriarchate of Venice in 1940 and then did his military service in the Italian air force during the Second World War. He was awarded the Italian War Merit Cross for saving the lives of 10 Italian airmen.
After the war he was appointed editor of the Venice diocesan weekly, La Voce di San Marco, and contributed to other publications as well as being a radio broadcaster. Then, in 1953, when Angelo Guiseppe Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII) was appointed Patriarch of Venice, he made Capovilla his secretary.
Capovilla later recalled, in his book, Loris F Capovilla: I miei anni con Papa Giovanni XXIII, how the vicar of Venice, Monsignor Erminio Macacek, expressed his concerns about the new secretarial appointment. “Your eminence,” he told Roncalli, “he is a good priest, he is good, but he is not very healthy. He will not live for long.”
Pope Pius XII, who died in 1958, was a tall, lean aristocrat who could not have been a sharper contrast to his successor, Roncalli, a tubby, homely 76-year-old of peasant origins. The electoral college, which was divided, thought Roncalli would be caretaker briefly until a younger man took over.
They were in for a surprise. “Good Pope John” did not possess the silky skills of some other Vatican diplomats (he had served in Bulgaria, Istanbul and Paris) but he had a sense of history and a free spirit. He retained Capovilla as his secretary – and faithful supporter – and announced that he would hold the first Vatican Council in almost a century.
On the day the Council opened, as the night-time crowd in St Peter’s Square began to disperse, the new Pope, encouraged by Capovilla, added a coda to the talk he had given, revealing himself as a pontiff for whom closeness to the people was as important as closeness to God. “Dear children,” he told his audience, “returning home, you will find children. Give your children a hug and say: 'This is a hug from the Pope.’ ”
Capovilla was thought to have been behind some of the boldest episodes in John’s papacy, including encouraging the Pope to meet Jules Isaac, a Jewish French historian whose family had been taken to Auschwitz. This meeting was instrumental in the declaration by the Second Vatican Council on the relations of the Church with non-Christian religions.
He served John XXIII for 10 years, until the Pope’s death, in 1963, from stomach cancer. Capovilla would later recall the moment when he requested a pardon for his shortcomings from the dying Pope. “Don’t go on, Loris,” the pontiff told his secretary. “The important thing is we served as God wanted and did not gather the stones some threw at us but remained mute, pardoned and loved.”
Rather than following the tradition of leaving documents to the Vatican, John XXIII left everything, letters and diaries included, to Capovilla, who went on to publish John’s Journal of a Soul. This has since has been described as the most successful book on spirituality by a pope since Gregory the Great in the 7th century. There were accusations, however, that Capovilla had edited out references to Benito Mussolini as the “man of providence”, words used to describe him when he healed the rift with the Church by the Lateran Pacts of 1929.
In 1967, Pope Paul VI appointed Capovilla archbishop of the Abruzzo diocese of Chieti and four years later transferred him to Loreto to take charge of that pilgrimage site. In 1988 Capovilla made his final move to Sotto Il Monte, the village near Bergamo where John had been born. There he opened a Pope John XXIII Museum and published his memoir of his time with him.
He also kept alive the memory of the hopes aroused by the Vatican Council during the years that Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI grappled with the problems in its wake.
Capovilla attended John’s beatification in 2000. In 2014 Pope Francis canonised John and made Capovilla a cardinal. He could not attend the ceremony because, although his memory remained formidable, his legs had given out.
Cardinal Capovilla celebrated his 100th birthday by sharing a meal at Sotto Il Monte with refugees. He remained serene and hopeful, always open to new developments and anxious to serve.
Cardinal Loris Capovilla, born October 14 1915, died May 26 2016
Loris Capovilla was born at Pontelungo, near Padua, on October 14 1915. His father, a clerk, died at the age of 37 and the family eventually moved to Mestre, the landlocked part of Venice.
Capovilla was ordained a priest of the Patriarchate of Venice in 1940 and then did his military service in the Italian air force during the Second World War. He was awarded the Italian War Merit Cross for saving the lives of 10 Italian airmen.
After the war he was appointed editor of the Venice diocesan weekly, La Voce di San Marco, and contributed to other publications as well as being a radio broadcaster. Then, in 1953, when Angelo Guiseppe Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII) was appointed Patriarch of Venice, he made Capovilla his secretary.
Capovilla later recalled, in his book, Loris F Capovilla: I miei anni con Papa Giovanni XXIII, how the vicar of Venice, Monsignor Erminio Macacek, expressed his concerns about the new secretarial appointment. “Your eminence,” he told Roncalli, “he is a good priest, he is good, but he is not very healthy. He will not live for long.”
Pope Pius XII, who died in 1958, was a tall, lean aristocrat who could not have been a sharper contrast to his successor, Roncalli, a tubby, homely 76-year-old of peasant origins. The electoral college, which was divided, thought Roncalli would be caretaker briefly until a younger man took over.
They were in for a surprise. “Good Pope John” did not possess the silky skills of some other Vatican diplomats (he had served in Bulgaria, Istanbul and Paris) but he had a sense of history and a free spirit. He retained Capovilla as his secretary – and faithful supporter – and announced that he would hold the first Vatican Council in almost a century.
On the day the Council opened, as the night-time crowd in St Peter’s Square began to disperse, the new Pope, encouraged by Capovilla, added a coda to the talk he had given, revealing himself as a pontiff for whom closeness to the people was as important as closeness to God. “Dear children,” he told his audience, “returning home, you will find children. Give your children a hug and say: 'This is a hug from the Pope.’ ”
Capovilla was thought to have been behind some of the boldest episodes in John’s papacy, including encouraging the Pope to meet Jules Isaac, a Jewish French historian whose family had been taken to Auschwitz. This meeting was instrumental in the declaration by the Second Vatican Council on the relations of the Church with non-Christian religions.
He served John XXIII for 10 years, until the Pope’s death, in 1963, from stomach cancer. Capovilla would later recall the moment when he requested a pardon for his shortcomings from the dying Pope. “Don’t go on, Loris,” the pontiff told his secretary. “The important thing is we served as God wanted and did not gather the stones some threw at us but remained mute, pardoned and loved.”
Rather than following the tradition of leaving documents to the Vatican, John XXIII left everything, letters and diaries included, to Capovilla, who went on to publish John’s Journal of a Soul. This has since has been described as the most successful book on spirituality by a pope since Gregory the Great in the 7th century. There were accusations, however, that Capovilla had edited out references to Benito Mussolini as the “man of providence”, words used to describe him when he healed the rift with the Church by the Lateran Pacts of 1929.
In 1967, Pope Paul VI appointed Capovilla archbishop of the Abruzzo diocese of Chieti and four years later transferred him to Loreto to take charge of that pilgrimage site. In 1988 Capovilla made his final move to Sotto Il Monte, the village near Bergamo where John had been born. There he opened a Pope John XXIII Museum and published his memoir of his time with him.
He also kept alive the memory of the hopes aroused by the Vatican Council during the years that Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI grappled with the problems in its wake.
Capovilla attended John’s beatification in 2000. In 2014 Pope Francis canonised John and made Capovilla a cardinal. He could not attend the ceremony because, although his memory remained formidable, his legs had given out.
Cardinal Capovilla celebrated his 100th birthday by sharing a meal at Sotto Il Monte with refugees. He remained serene and hopeful, always open to new developments and anxious to serve.
Cardinal Loris Capovilla, born October 14 1915, died May 26 2016
