His coat of arms, like the seal he uses to close access to the papal apartments, is adorned with the two keys of Saint Peter and the Latin currency “Vacant sede”. It is indeed when the seat is vacant, after the death of the Pope, that the role of Cardinal Camerlingue takes on its importance, which is far from only symbolic.
The current office holder was appointed in 2019 by Pope Francis, who died on Monday April 21. Born in Dublin, Ireland, Kevin Farrell, 77, has made most of his career in the United States, a country he ended up taking nationality. Trained by the legionaries of Christ, a congregation later undermined by the scandals of sexual abuse, holder of a Master of Business Administration (MBA) of Notre-Dame-du-Lac University, in Indiana, Kevin Farrell became bishop of Dallas in 2007, before being called to the Vatican by Pope Francis, who created him in 2016 and does the prefect (Minister) of the newly formed dicastery for laity, family and life.
It was at Cardinal Camerlingue that was returned, on the evening of April 21, the burden of seeing the death of the Sovereign Pontiff (a procedure much less theatrical than in the past, when Camerlingue called three times the name of the Pope by touching his forehead with a silver hammer), then preside over his beer. This gesture makes him the “interim” chief of the Vatican. However, its powers are lower than those of an in-office pope: Camerlingue administers the Vatican time affairs, that is to say mainly administrative and financial.
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Source: Lemonde