Giacomo Lercaro
Giacomo Lercaro was an Italian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Ravenna from 1947 to 1952, and Archbishop of Bologna from 1952 to 1968. Pope Pius XII made him a cardinal in 1953.
Biography
Early life and ordination
Giacomo Lercaro was born in Quinto al Mare, Genoa, as the eighth of nine children. He came from a family of seamen, and two of his brothers, Amedeo and Attilio, also entered religion. From 1902 to 1914, Lercaro attended the archdiocesan seminary in Genoa. He was ordained a priest on 25 July 1914 by Archbishop Ildefonso Pisani, and four months later, in November, travelled to Rome to study at the Pontifical Biblical Institute.Pastoral and theological work
When Italy entered World War I, Lercaro was forced to change posts and become a military chaplain until the war ended in 1918. In 1918, he became prefect of the Seminary of Genoa, where his brother Amedeo was rector, and would remain in that post until 1923. He also served as substitute professor of theology and professor of sacred scripture and patrology. In 1927 he became a teacher of religion in secondary school and became involved in numerous student movements in the Genoa district.Archbishop
He received his episcopal consecration on 19 March 1947 from Archbishop Giuseppe Siri, with Archbishop Angleo Rossini and Bishop Francesco Canessa serving as co-consecrators. In the consistory of 12 January 1953, Lercaro was created Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria in Traspontina by Pius XII.Cardinal
During his early years as a cardinal, Lercaro established his first contacts with Angelo Roncalli and became well known for the way in which he turned his episcopal palace into an orphanage. Although he had been seen by Vatican watchers ever since 1953 as a possible successor to Pius XII and was listed by l'Osservatore Romano as a papabile, his reputation as the most idiosyncratic of all the cardinals and the desire for a transitional pontiff saw him passed over in favor of Roncalli in 1958.A friend of the Freemason and piduist Umberto Ortolani, who had grown up economically and politically in Bologna, he was one of the first members of the Catholic hierarchy to establish a dialogue with the Communists. Generally considered papabile in the 1963 papal conclave closest to the vision of John XXIII, Lercaro, however, was considered too liberal by most of his fellow cardinal electors to be elected; Giovanni Battista Montini ultimately won.
Although Cardinal Lercaro did much vital work in implementing the Second Vatican Council after it closed in 1965, his advancing age saw him gradually disappear from prominence within the Church as the 1960s drew to a close. On 12 February 1968, Cardinal Lercaro was forced to step down from his position as Archbishop of Bologna and in 1971, he lost his right to participate in any future conclave upon reaching the age of eighty according to the then-recent motu proprio Ingravescentem aetatem.