Although his main job will end, U.S. cardinal to remain at Vatican

Published: 2006-06-23

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When U.S. Cardinal Edmund C. Szoka retires as president of the commission governing Vatican City State in September, he will be moving out of his apartment at the Vatican governor's palace -- but to another apartment inside the 109-acre city state. Pope Benedict XVI announced June 22 that he accepted Cardinal Szoka's resignation, but asked him to remain on the job until Sept. 15 when Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, the Vatican's foreign minister, would take the helm. While Cardinal Szoka said he someday might spend part of the year in Rome and part of the year in Detroit, where he served as archbishop, he will stay at the Vatican for at least another year. The cardinal said, "I am a member of five different Vatican congregations, some of which meet every month." The normal retirement age for a bishop or Vatican official is 75, but cardinals remain members of Vatican congregations and councils until their 80th birthdays. Cardinal Szoka will turn 79 Sept. 14.

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