- Gaetano Cicognani
infobox cardinalstyles
cardinal name=Gaetano Cardinal Cicognani
dipstyle=His Eminence
offstyle=Your Eminence
See=Frascati (suburbicarain)|Gaetano Cardinal Cicognani (
November 26 ,1881 —February 5 ,1962 ) was an Italianprelate of theRoman Catholic Church . He served asPrefect of theApostolic Signatura from 1954 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1953 byPope Pius XII .Biography
Gaetano Cicognani was born in
Brisighella to Guglielmo Cicognani and his wife Anna Ceroni. His brother, Amleto, was born over a year later in 1883. To support Gaetano and his brother, theirwidow ed mother ran ageneral store [Time Magazine. [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,895661,00.html The Vatican's No. 2]August 25 ,1961 ] . Cicognani studied at theseminary inFaenza , and was ordained to the priesthood by BishopGioacchino Cantagalli onSeptember 24 ,1904 . He then went toRome to attend the Pontifical Roman Athenaeum "S. Apollinare" andPontifical Ecclesiastical Academy .After working in the Roman Rota and
Apostolic Signatura , Cicognani taught at thePontifical Roman Seminary and later entered the Secretariat of State in 1915. He becamesecretary of the Spanishnunciature onFebruary 1 ,1916 , and a Privy Chamberlain of His Holiness onMarch 9 ,1916 . He was madeaudit or of the nunciature toBelgium onFebruary 3 ,1920 .On
January 11 ,1925 , Cicognani was appointedNuncio toBolivia and Titular Archbishop of "Ancyra". He received his episcopal consecration on the followingFebruary 1 from Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, with Archbishops Rafaello Rossi, OCD, and Giovanni Zonghi serving as co-consecrators, in thechapel of the Pontifical "Collegio Pio-Latinoamericano " in Rome. Cicognani was later named Nuncio toPeru onJune 15 ,1928 , toAustria onJune 13 ,1936 , and toSpain onMay 16 ,1938 .Pope Pius XII created him Cardinal Priest of "S. Cecilia" in theconsistory ofJanuary 12 ,1953 . Cicognani returned to work in theRoman Curia upon his appointment asPrefect of theCongregation of Rites onDecember 7 of that same year. He became Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura onNovember 18 ,1954 , and was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 1958 papal conclave that selectedPope John XXIII . That December, his brother Amleto, by a specialdispensation of canon law, was also elevated to theCollege of Cardinals . This law had so distressed Gaetano (as he felt it curbed his brother's career) that he once came close to tears when someone jokingly said, "Because of you, your brother cannot become cardinal" [Ibid.] . OnDecember 14 ,1959 , he was named Cardinal Bishop of Frascati by Pope John.He died in Rome, at age 80, and is buried in the
collegiate church of "S. Michele" in his native Brisighella.Trivia
* In April 1934, Archbishop Cicognani, then Nuncio to Peru, visited his brother, himself the Apostolic Delegate to the United States, whom Gaetano had not seen in seven years [TIME Magazine. [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,930499,00.html In the Churches]
April 30 ,1934 ] .References
External links
* [http://www.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios-c.htm#Cicognani2 Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church]
* [http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bcico.html Catholic-Hierarchy]
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