Italian cardinal-designate keeps low profile at Vatican's high court

Published: 2006-03-14

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- As prefect of the Vatican's highest court, Italian Cardinal-designate Agostino Vallini keeps a very low profile. One of the only public comments he has made in the past six months was his six-minute speech at the October Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist. Although his professional training has been in civil and canon law, he also brings pastoral experience -- including 15 years as a bishop -- to his position at the Vatican. Pope Benedict XVI will bestow a red hat on the 65-year-old prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature during his March 24 consistory to create new cardinals. The cardinal-designate has headed the court since May 2004, hearing appeals of decisions issued by lower church courts. Pope John Paul II, who brought Cardinal-designate Vallini to the Vatican, met with him several times each summer for five years when the future cardinal was bishop of Albano, Italy, the diocese south of Rome that includes Castel Gandolfo, home of the summer papal villa. One of the Albano bishop's tasks is to welcome the pope to Castel Gandolfo each summer, then to formally bid him farewell.

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