1. Tarcisio Pietro Evasio Bertone was born on 2 December 1934 and is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church and a Vatican diplomat.
42 Facts About Tarcisio Bertone
1. 2.
Tarcisio Bertone was considered a contender to succeed Benedict XVI.
3.
Besides his native Italian, Bertone speaks fluent French, Spanish, German and Portuguese.
4.
Tarcisio Bertone has some knowledge of English, although he is not fluent, and he can read Polish, Latin, Greek and Hebrew.
5.
Tarcisio Bertone was born in Romano Canavese, Piedmont, the fifth of eight children.
6.
Tarcisio Bertone has stated that his mother was a determined anti-fascist militant of the Italian People's Party, and later a Christian Democrat.
7.
Tarcisio Bertone professed his vows as a member of the Salesians on 3 December 1950 and was ordained a priest by Archbishop Albino Mensa on 1 July 1960.
8.
Tarcisio Bertone's dissertation was entitled The Governance of the Church in the Thought of Pope Benedict XIV.
9.
Tarcisio Bertone served as Professor of Special Moral Theology at the Pontifical Salesian University from 1967 until his appointment as Professor of Canon Law in 1976, a post he held until 1991.
10.
Tarcisio Bertone was a visiting professor of Public Ecclesiastical Law at the Institute Utriusque Iuris of the Pontifical Lateran University in 1978.
11.
Tarcisio Bertone was commissioned by Pope John Paul II to assist Emmanuel Milingo, Archbishop Emeritus of Lusaka, Zambia, in returning to the Catholic Church in 2001.
12.
On 4 July 1991, Tarcisio Bertone was appointed Archbishop of Vercelli by Pope John Paul II.
13.
Tarcisio Bertone was consecrated bishop one month later by Mensa, who had ordained him priest.
14.
Tarcisio Bertone held this post until his resignation in 1995 upon being named Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI.
15.
Tarcisio Bertone later specialized in the relationship between social morality, faith and politics.
16.
Tarcisio Bertone assisted with the revision of the 1983 Code of Canon Law and undertook pastoral work in parishes.
17.
Tarcisio Bertone was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2005 papal conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI.
18.
Tarcisio Bertone participated as a cardinal elector in the 2013 papal conclave that elected Pope Francis.
19.
On 22 June 2006, Benedict XVI appointed Tarcisio Bertone to replace Angelo Sodano as the Cardinal Secretary of State.
20.
On 26 June 2006 Tarcisio Bertone was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
21.
Tarcisio Bertone had no prior experience in the Vatican's diplomatic corps.
22.
Two weeks before entering office, asked about reforms of the Roman Curia, Tarcisio Bertone remarked, "After almost two decades, an evaluation of how the dicasteries are organised is more than comprehensible, in order to reflect on how to make the existing structures more efficient for the mission of the Church and eventually to consider whether all of them should be maintained".
23.
Tarcisio Bertone continued: "All of us have realized that it is precisely the deep love that Your Holiness has for God and the Church that prompted you to make this act, revealing that purity of mind, that strong and demanding faith, that strength of humility and meekness, along with great courage, that have marked every step of your life and your ministry".
24.
Tarcisio Bertone was the second most senior cardinal-elector in order of precedence among the cardinal-electors who participated in the 2013 conclave that elected Pope Francis, after the presiding cardinal Giovanni Battista Re.
25.
Tarcisio Bertone himself was seen as a contender to succeed to the papacy, although his chances as a papabile were thought diminished by the perception that he was a "potential scandal in the making".
26.
At Pope Francis' inauguration, Tarcisio Bertone was one of the six cardinals who made the public act of obedience on behalf of the College of Cardinals.
27.
Tarcisio Bertone was a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Congregation for the Clergy, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, the Congregation for Bishops and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples until his 80th birthday on 2 December 2014.
28.
On 15 March 2005, Tarcisio Bertone was in the news for "breaking the Church's silence" and criticizing Dan Brown's 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code, saying the book was "shameful and full of unfounded lies", and that believers should boycott the book.
29.
On 5 June 2007, at a conference announcing the release of a new biography of Pope Pius XII, Tarcisio Bertone defended Pius against claims of indifference toward the Jews during the Holocaust.
30.
Tarcisio Bertone said in response: "We do not want to engage in proselytism in Russia".
31.
On 14 January 2009, Tarcisio Bertone suggested that the church would consider taking much stronger action against drug dealers.
32.
Tarcisio Bertone made a statement about the church's alarm at the "disaster" of drug-fuelled violence on the eve of a trip to Mexico.
33.
Tarcisio Bertone came under fire by Antonio Socci, Christopher Ferrara, and others for allegedly manipulating the "third secret" of Our Lady of Fatima.
34.
In 1988 Tarcisio Bertone was appointed to a group of experts that assisted Joseph Ratzinger in negotiations with the excommunicated archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
35.
Tarcisio Bertone figured prominently in documents leaked to the media in which Tarcisio Bertone appears to have reproved the general secretary of the Vatican governorate, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, for reporting detailed evidence of nepotism, cronyism, and general mismanagement.
36.
Tarcisio Bertone blamed the scandal over leaked Vatican documents on unethical journalists and a spirit of hostility toward the Catholic Church.
37.
The pope was asked about reports that Tarcisio Bertone mishandled 15 million euro in funds held by the Institute for the Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican Bank.
38.
Between November 2013 and May 2014, Tarcisio Bertone combined and renovated two apartments in the San Carlo Palace in Vatican City to create a single residence for himself, a secretary, and three nuns, reportedly a total of 604-square-metre and a roof terrace.
39.
Tarcisio Bertone said he was renovating the apartment at his own expense, that it is half the size reported, and that Pope Francis telephoned him to express support when he was attacked in the press for expenditure.
40.
Tarcisio Bertone responded to reports that monies belonging to Bambino Gesu Hospital had been used for the construction work by donating 150,000 euros to the hospital.
41.
On 3 October 2017, Gianantonio Bandera, an Italian businessman whose now-bankrupt contracting firm renovated the apartment, said that Tarcisio Bertone personally oversaw the renovation and contacted him directly without taking bids, as would ordinarily be required.
42.
Tarcisio Bertone received the Gaudium et Spes Award at the Knights of Columbus Supreme Convention in 2007.