New French cardinal is longtime Vatican insider on foreign affairs

Published: 2003-10-15

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- As the Vatican's "foreign minister" for the past 13 years, French Cardinal-designate Jean-Louis Tauran has coordinated diplomatic efforts on a wide range of international and church-state issues. Most of his work has been behind the scenes, with daily unpublicized meetings with diplomats accredited to the Holy See and with visiting dignitaries. But sometimes Cardinal-designate Tauran has been called upon to express Vatican positions more openly -- on war and peace, on the Holy Land or on the rights of minority Catholic communities. During the buildup to the recent war in Iraq, he surprised some diplomats with a series of sharply worded statements critical of U.S. policy and burnished his image as a "tough" diplomat in the European tradition. Reportedly because of health issues, Cardinal-designate Tauran, 60, is leaving his position as "secretary for relations with states" in the Vatican's Secretariat of State. He is thought to be in line for a new Vatican position, but that has not been announced. He was named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II Sept. 28 and will be inducted into the College of Cardinals with 29 others in a consistory Oct. 21.

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