Vatican City (AP) — Cardinal Kevin Farrell remembers the day Pope Francis asked him to become Camerlengo. They were back in Rome from Panama’s 2019 World Youth Day, and Francis popped the question in business class.
Farrell, 77, had only been in Rome for a few years, but was suddenly summoned from his duties as bishop of Dallas to reorganize the Vatican lay office, an important part of Francis’ reform. Three years after the job, Francis asks to take on another role, immersed in myths and mystery, but actually responsible. It helps you manage the Vatican “camerlengo” or Camberlen frequently during the traumatic “regnum” and organize integrations to select the next Pontif.
“I told him I would accept the position, but in one state,” Farrell recalled in a 2022 interview, laughing as he remembered the conversation he was in the air. The condition was that the Pope had to preach at Farrell’s own funeral. It reflected Farrell’s death before Francis, and the hope that he would not have to act as Camerlengo.
There were two jokes. Farrell didn’t want any particularly heavy responsibility. But more personally, he didn’t want to entertain Francis’ ountionlylance. Francis believed that he set the Catholic Church on an important path to renewal, and that it had moved away from the defense of the culture war and returned to the essence of gospel-led inclusion.
“We were always defending ourselves. Self-preservation was a church theme,” Farrell said. “And Pope Francis moved us beyond self-preservation,” he said in a message of welcome and accompaniment.
The role of Kamerlengo
However, with Francis’ death, Farrell is only in the spotlight until a new Pope is elected. Farrell announced his death Monday morning from the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta Hotel, where Francis lives and died. In a short statement, reading live on Vatican television, he said that Francis’ “all life was dedicated to the Lord and his church service.”
According to tradition, Camerlengo proves the death of the Pope, seals the Pope’s apartment and breaks the Pope’s circle of fishermen. He leads the procession with a co to St. Peter’s Cathedral and burials are lorded.
Camerlengo will also receive written reports from the Vatican office about its current assets. Copy of current and forecast budgets for the Holy Sea. and other information from the Vatican Ministry of Economy that will be useful for Cardinals and future Popes. He and the dean of the Cardinals University, Italian Cardinal Giovanni Batista, will play an important role in hosting the Cardinals meeting ahead of the Conclave.
Farrell, a nonsense Irish-born American, said that financial obligations are far more important than ritual obligations and what he is more entitled to. Farrell already heads the Top Vatican Committee on finances, investments, confidential matters and its Supreme Court, and he is particularly suited to provide financial prospectus to the new Pope.
From Ireland to the US
Francis chose to bridge his Pope, born in Dublin on September 2, 1947. He joined the Legion of Christ’s Religious Order in 1966 and was appointed priest in 1978 for the Mexico-based order. He left six years later.
He worked in a series of parishes, but increased his responsibility for the Archdiocese book. He has a sharp mind in finances, but says he never finished his MBA. He became an auxiliary bishop of Washington in 2001 and served under former Prime Minister Theodore McCarrick before becoming bishop of Dallas in 2007.
Farrell has repeatedly said that during his years in Washington he has never heard of rumors that McAric had inappropriately acted with a seminalian, that he was sleeping with them in his bed while he was a bishop in New Jersey. McCarrick, who passed away earlier this month, was delocked after a 2019 Vatican investigation discovered by children who were sexually abused, as well as adults.
Farrell said that when his secretary came to him in May 2016 to tell him the Pope was on the phone, he was happy and “very comfortable” as a bishop of Dallas.
“And I said, ‘The Pope doesn’t call. The Pope doesn’t use the phone,'” Farrell said. “So I got the phone. I was trying to tell him where to go,” suddenly, as a voice on the line quietly said in Spanish, “Soy Francisco” – “This is Francis.”
The two never met, but Francis knew Farrell would speak Spanish in flue, given his years at Mexico-based Legion.
Vatican allocation
Francis also knew that Farrell had a policy in both Washington and Dallas that placed qualified congregants, not priests, in positions of authority to run the parish.
Farrell said Francis asked him to do the same at the Sacred Shee office. It wanted to rebuild it by combining it with the Vatican family and life departments and serving as a model of standard governance for church management.
“I was trying to come up with all the reasons why I shouldn’t do that, and he said, ‘Well, you’ll think about it for three days and I’ll call you back,” recalls Farrell. “Three days later I called at the same time and then gave him all the reasons I formulated.
“Well, that was the end,” Farrell said.
He moved to Rome in October 2016 and led the congregational office. Within hours of arrival, Francis announced that Farrell would become a cardinal.
That was a sign that was later confirmed in his nomination as Camerlengo. Francis was entirely intended to entrust some of the Church’s most important responsibilities to Farrell, including after he was gone.
