Pericle Felici

Felici was born in Segni near Rome on 1 August 1911. He studied theology at the local seminary of Segni and at the Roman Pontifical Seminary. He was ordained as a priest in 1933. He earned degrees in philosophy, theology and canon law and then served for ten years as rector of the Pontifical Roman Seminary. He took up his first assignment with the Roman Curia in 1947 as an auditor of the Roman Rota, the Holy See's highest trial court.{{cite book|last1=Chenaux|first1=Philippe|title=Le temps de Vatican II: Une introduction à l'histoire du Concile|date=2012|publisher=Desclée De Brouwer|isbn=9782220080062|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BmrmDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT45 |accessdate=27 April 2018 | language=fr}}

File:Pericle Felici.jpg]]

In 1959, when Pope John XXIII named a committee of twelve to plan the Second Vatican Council, Felici was named a member and its secretary.{{cite news | accessdate =26 April 2018| date= 17 May 1959 |url = https://www.nytimes.com/1959/05/17/archives/pope-picks-group-to-plan-council-12-churchmen-will-prepare-agenda.html | work = The New York Times | title = Pope Picks Group to Plan Council }} As secretary he served as spokesman, outlining the committee's plans to the media. He described its work as current issues rather than questions of church practice and said journalists would be welcome to report freely: "The Pope wants all opinions, even if contrary to the doctrine, experience and jurisprudence of the Roman curia."{{cite news | accessdate =26 April 2018| date= 19 April 1961 |url = https://www.nytimes.com/1961/04/19/archives/ecumenical-parley-expected-in-1962.html | work = The New York Times | title = Ecumenical Parley Expected in 1962 }} Cardinal Roberto Tucci recorded in his diaries that Pope John described Felici as very learned and a hard worker, adding that "he has a narrow mind".

In 1960 he was appointed the titular archbishop of Samosata and ordained as a bishop on 28 October. Upon the death of Pope John in 1963, Felici led the services when the pope's body was transferred to St. Peter's Basilica{{cite news | accessdate =26 April 2018| date= 5 June 1963 |url = https://www.nytimes.com/1963/06/05/archives/pope-jonns-body-lies-in-st-peters-for-public-honor-procession-to.html | work = The New York Times | title = Pope John's Body Lies in St. Peter's for Public Honor | first= Arnaldo| last= Cortesi}} and when it was interred in the basilica's crypt.{{cite news | accessdate =26 April 2018| date= 7 June 1963 |url = https://www.nytimes.com/1963/06/07/archives/pope-john-buried-in-basilica-crypt-majestic-rites-in-st-peters.html | work = The New York Times | title = Pope John Buried in Basilica Crypt | first= Arnaldo| last= Cortesi}}

As Secretary General of the council, he took the required oath on behalf of all Council participants. He made announcements to the assembled bishops about their agenda and procedures in Latin,{{cite news | accessdate =26 April 2018| date= 8 October 1963 |url = https://www.nytimes.com/1963/10/08/archives/informal-air-tempers-ceremony-at-sessions-of-vatican-council.html | work = The New York Times | title = Informal Air Tempers Ceremony at Sessions of Vatican Council}} as well as the results of balloting when voting began in late 1963.{{cite news | accessdate =26 April 2018| date= 5 December 1963 |url = https://www.nytimes.com/1963/12/05/archives/tv-looks-over-prelates-shoulders.html | work = The New York Times | title = TV Looks over Prelates' Shoulders | first=Milton | last=Bracker}} In 1962, during its first session, he prevented the distribution of copies of a speech scheduled for delivery by Helder Pessoa Camara, then Auxiliary Bishop of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Rio de Janeiro, because it criticized the council's failure to address social issues.{{cite news | accessdate =26 April 2018| date= 23 September 1963 |url = https://www.nytimes.com/1963/09/23/archives/brazilian-bids-fellow-prelates-drop-some-trappings-of-office.html | work = The New York Times | title = Brazilian Bids Fellow Prelates Drop Some Trappings of Office | first= Arnaldo| last= Cortesi}} On 25 November 1963, as the council's second session was nearing its end and factional disputes were breaking into the open, Felici tried to prevent the distribution of a statement on the council's much-contested document on communications signed by 25 bishops, even trying without success to take one from Auxiliary Bishop Josef Maria Reuss of Mainz and then summoning Vatican police.{{cite news | accessdate =26 April 2018| date= 26 November 1963 |url = https://www.nytimes.com/1963/11/26/archives/vatican-council-nears-its-end-communications-text-is-issue-decree.html | work = The New York Times | title = Vatican Council Nears Its End; Communications Text Is Issue | first=Milton | last=Bracker}}{{cite book| last1=Küng| first1=Hans| title=My Struggle for Freedom: A Memoir|page=401|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AT48-nPbbagC&pg=PA357|accessdate=26 April 2018| publisher=A&C Black | date=2005 | isbn=9780826476388}} Thomas Merton mocked him as the council's "dean of discipline" when the next year Felici announced that distributing such leaflets was forbidden.{{cite book|last1=Merton|first1=Thomas|title=A Vow of Conversation: Journals, 1964-1965|date=1988|publisher=Farrar Straus Giroux|location=New York|page=[https://archive.org/details/vowofconversatio0000mert/page/81 81]|url=https://archive.org/details/vowofconversatio0000mert|url-access=registration|accessdate=26 April 2018}} Felici was identified as a key member of the Curia, along with such senior officials as Alfredo Ottaviani, head of the Congregation of the Holy Office, and Amleto Cicognani, Secretary of State, who tried to maintain control of the Council in the interests of the Roman Curia and limit the influence of the bishops who constituted the council's membership.{{cite book| last1=Küng| first1=Hans| title=My Struggle for Freedom: A Memoir| date=January 2005|pages=335, 357–8, 364, 405–6, 413, 421–2, 431 | publisher=A&C Black| isbn=9780826476388|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AT48-nPbbagC&pg=PA357|accessdate=26 April 2018 | quote=But shortly afterward [Bishop Sergio Méndez Arceo] learns from the General Secretary of the Council, the jovial but brutal Curia bishop Felici, that Felici has struck out this entry, since speaking on the topic [celibacy] is not allowed. 'And why?,' asks the bishop. As so often the snooty answer is: 'Ex auctotitate superiore, on higher authority.' By this impressive phrase the members of the Curia mean the pope–whether they've asked him or not.}}

File:Visita a Fátima do Cardeal Pericle Felici.jpg in May 1968]]

He was also named president of the Pontifical Commission for the Interpretation of the Decrees of the Second Vatican Council. It was tasked with implementing papal decisions that resulted from the council's work and authoring decrees to implement the council's decisions on Christian education and on the role of the laity.{{cite news|title=Sharing of Power Ordered by Pope|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1966/08/13/archives/sharing-of-power-ordered-by-pope-decentralization-of-authority.html|accessdate=27 April 2018|work=The New York Times|date=13 August 1966}} He was also a member of the Vatican commission that reviewed the new catechism produced by the Dutch bishops in 1967 and sought clarifications before allowing it to be translated into other languages.{{cite news|title=Vatican Seeking Changes by Dutch|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/08/04/archives/vatican-seeking-changes-by-dutch-but-it-is-reported-to-find-no.html|accessdate=27 April 2018|work=The New York Times|date=4 August 1966}}

Beginning on 21 February 1967, he headed the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law,{{efn|Following Vatican practice for appointments to positions reserved for a cardinal, Felici was initially named pro-president of this Commission and became its president when he became a cardinal in June.{{cite news|title=Pope Names Polish Prelate as Head of New Synod of Bishops|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1967/02/24/archives/pope-names-polish-prelate-as-head-of-new-synod-of-bishops.html|accessdate=27 April 2018|work=The New York Times|date=24 February 1967}}}}{{cite book|last1=Van de Wiel |first1=Constant|title=History of Canon Law|date=1991|publisher=Peeters Press|location=Louvain|page=175|isbn=9789068312126|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6FSbkOnvzz8C&pg=PA175|accessdate=26 April 2018}}{{cite book |url = http://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/AAS-59-1967-ocr.pdf | page= 382 | access-date = 20 June 2020 | date= 1967 | volume = LIX |title = Acta Apostolicae Sedis }} a task completed a few months before his death. The commission's initial attempts to produce an introductory statement on the nature of the Church, a text known as the Lex Fundamentalist, met significant criticism from those identified as liberals and progressives, and Cardinal Suenens blamed Felici personally for producing a text, he said, "completely blocking all future development".{{cite news | work = The New York Times | accessdate = 27 April 2018| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/15/archives/a-church-document-that-may-produce-fireworks-catholics.html | date= 15 August 1971 | title = A Church Document That May Produce Fireworks | first= Edward B. | last= Fiske}} Felici circulated a draft to the world's bishops in the spring of 1971 and reported to the Synod of Bishops in November 1971 that it had been overwhelmingly rejected. It was, wrote one journalist, "vigorously and even bitterly criticized by canon lawyers and others" who described it as "overly authoritarian" and complained that it "committed the church to single outdated view of itself at a time when the subject is still a source of considerable disagreement among theologians".{{cite news | work = The New York Times | accessdate = 27 April 2018| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1971/11/04/archives/synod-of-bishops-affirms-celibacy-rule-for-priests-synod-reaffirms.html | date= 4 November 1971 | title = Synod of Bishops Affirms Celibacy Rule for Priests | first= Edward B. | last= Fiske}}

By the time Pope Paul reiterated the Church's opposition to artificial birth control in Humanae vitae in 1968, Felici was recognized as one of the key figures in the Curia who supported Pope Paul VI in his "new hard-line policy". In The New Yorker, Francis X. Murphy found it "depressing" that the pope was "inspired and supported by the same group ... who tried unsuccessfully to thwart the majority of the bishops at the Council"–Ottaviani, Cicognani, Antoniutti, Staffa, and Felici–a group of whom the liberal and controversial theologian Edward Schillebeeckx said: "In my opinion, Pope Paul has become a prisoner of five or six cardinals. Because of their one-sided information, he became convinced of the necessity of a hard line [on birth control]. Everybody knows who these cardinals are. They are really blind. They are the ones who are destroying the Church."{{cite magazine |last1=Rynne |first1=Xavier|author-link=Xavier Rynne |title=Letter from Vatican City: The Catholic Church and Contraception|magazine=The New Yorker|date=2 November 1968|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1968/11/02/letter-from-vatican-city-13|accessdate=27 April 2018}}{{efn|The New Yorker article appeared under the byline of Xavier Rynne, the pseudonym of Francis X. Murphy.{{cite journal|last=Hayes | first= Patrick J. |title='Bless Me Father, for I Have Rynned': The Vatican II Journalism of Francis X. Murphy, C.Ss.R. |journal= U.S. Catholic Historian |volume= 30 |issue= 2 |date= 2012 |pages = 55–75 | doi= 10.1353/cht.2012.0011 | jstor= 23362870| s2cid= 162301731 }}}}

Felici appeared in a more collaborative context in 1970 when he joined Cardinal Johannes Willebrands in announcing somewhat relaxed rules for Catholics who marry non-Catholics.{{cite news|title=Vatican Asks Talks on Mixed Marriage |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/05/01/archives/vatican-asks-talks-on-mixed-marriage.html |accessdate=27 April 2018|work=The New York Times|date=1 May 1970|quote=The new rules eliminate the requirement that the non-Catholic partner promise to raise the children in the Catholic faith. Instead, they require only that the non-Catholic be informed of his spouse's commitment to bring up the children as Catholics.}}

He was also a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law for the Eastern Rite.

On 26 June 1967, Pope Paul VI elevated him to the rank of cardinal and made Cardinal-Deacon of Sant'Apollinare alle Terme Neroniane-Alessandrine.{{cite news | accessdate =26 April 2018| date= 30 May 1967 |url = https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/05/30/81840538.pdf | work = The New York Times | title = Pontiff Appoints 27 New Cardinals | first= Edward B. | last = Fiske}} At a reception for the new cardinals, Pope Paul asked him what the appointment meant to him and he answered: "A lot of work and loyalty to the boss."

On 14 September 1977 he was appointed Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the chief judicial officer of the Holy See.{{cite news|title=Pope Advances a Cardinal |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/09/15/archives/pope-advances-a-cardinal.html |accessdate=27 April 2018|work=The New York Times|date=15 September 1977}}

In 1978, Felici participated in the August and October papal conclaves, where he was considered papabile, that is, a candidate for election, though no candidate appeared particularly strong. Reports said U.S. and Latin American cardinals found Felici too conservative.{{cite news|title=Pope Dies After Heart Attack|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/08/07/pope-dies-after-heart-attack/45afc085-5ccd-4d56-bd10-4776c984e4c6/|accessdate=26 April 2018|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=7 August 1978}}{{cite news | work = Der Spiegel | language = de | accessdate = 27 April 2018 | url = http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-40607321.html | date = 14 August 1978 | title= Völlig offen }}{{cite news | work = The New York Times | accessdate = 27 April 2018 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/05/archives/polish-cardinal-warmly-greeted-wojtyla-winds-up-his-tour-of-the-us.html |title= Polish Cardinal Warmly Greeted | date= 5 September 1976 | first = George | last = Dugan}}

Because he was the senior Cardinal Deacon, he made the first public announcement of the conclave's results, announcing the elections of Albino Luciani as Pope John Paul I and of Karol Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II. He also as senior cardinal deacon bestowed the pallium on both popes at their papal inaugurations.{{cite news|title=Pope John Paul II Receiving Pallium|url=https://www.gettyimages.ae/detail/news-photo/pope-john-paul-ii-receives-pallium-from-cardinal-deacon-news-photo/515410998#/pope-john-paul-ii-receives-pallium-from-cardinal-deacon-pericle-his-picture-id515410998|accessdate=26 April 2018|work=Getty Images|date=22 October 1978}}

His title as cardinal-deacon was changed to cardinal-priest on 30 June 1979.{{citation needed|date=April 2018}}

He was a conservative voice at several meetings of the Synod of Bishops. In 1971, though Pope Paul had sought the bishops' opinions on priestly celibacy, he preferred to leave the matter to the pope alone.{{cite news|last1=Fiske |first1=Edward B.|title=Synod Split on ordaining Married Men |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/11/05/archives/synod-split-on-ordaining-married-men.html |accessdate=27 April 2018|work=The New York Times|date=5 November 1971}} In 1974, he led the discussion group that chose Latin as its common language and he criticized liberals who represented social and political liberation as a pathway to liberation from sin, which he considered a formulation that reversed the truth and disparaged the role of religion and the Church.{{cite news|last1=Shenker |first1=Israel|title=But They Talk in Rome of Laity, Liturgy, Family and Youth|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/10/20/archives/bishops-worry-no-one-cares-but-they-talk-in-rome-of-laity-liturgy.html|accessdate=27 April 2018|work=The New York Times|date=20 October 1974}}

In 1978, Pope John Paul II appointed Felici to the 15-member council of the Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops, in likely anticipation of the planned 1980 synod on the family, given the Signatura's responsibility for marriage annulments. Felici was known as an opponent of proposals to ease the granting of annulments.{{cite book|last1=Reese |first1=Thomas J.|title=Inside the Vatican|date=1998| publisher= Harvard University Press |pages=289–90|isbn=9780674932616|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FYMKOgA5lSAC&pg=PA289|accessdate=26 April 2018}} At that Synod in October 1980, when several bishops called for a study of the Church's ban on artificial forms of birth control or a reconsideration of the way the Church taught it, he said he considered the encyclical that established the ban, Humanae vitae, a "closed" document.{{cite news|title=Italian Cardinal Criticizes a Call For Review of Birth Control Ban|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1980/10/01/archives/italian-cardinal-criticizes-a-call-for-review-of-birth-control-ban.html|accessdate=27 April 2018|work=The New York Times|date=1 October 1980}}{{efn|Those criticizing the ban included Cardinal Basil Hume of Westminster, Archbishop John R. Quinn of San Francisco, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Archbishop Joseph Bernadin of Cincinnati, its former president.}} Felici said: "There is no need of rediscussing it, no need to pay attention to statistics because statistics don't signify anything."{{cite news| title= Archbishop Stresses Stand Against Birth Control|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1980/10/02/archives/archbishop-stresses-stand-against-birth-control-support-and.html | accessdate=27 April 2018|work=The New York Times|date=2 October 1980 | first=Kenneth A. | last= Briggs}} In a speech approved by Pope John Paul II, he reported to the Synod that marriage annulments were rapidly increasing and that lower courts were failing to uphold standards and using excuses like "psychological immaturity". He warned that canon law should not be disregarded out of "theological or pastoral concern".{{cite news| title= Annulments Soar, the Vatican Finds |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1980/10/07/archives/annulments-soar-the-vatican-finds-cardinal-tells-the-synod-of.html | accessdate=27 April 2018|work=The New York Times|date=7 October 1980}}{{efn|According to the New York Times, annulments granted in the United States rose from 338 in 1968 to 17,190 in 1978.}}

A master of Latin, he "had a biting sense of humor, which he reportedly used at the expense of cardinals whose Latin was not up to his". He wrote poetry in Latin and was said to prefer to converse in Latin.{{cite book|last1=Hebblethwaite|first1=Peter|title=John XXIII: Pope of the Century|date=1994|orig-year =1984| publisher=Continuum| location=London|pages=208, 221|isbn=9780826449955|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tJF9cPqSoPsC&pg=PA208|accessdate=26 April 2018}}

He suffered a heart attack in 1980.{{cite news|title=Cardinal Pericle Felici, a high-ranking member of the Vatican|url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/03/22/Cardinal-Pericle-Felici-a-high-ranking-member-of-the-Vatican/1712385621200/|accessdate=26 April 2018|work=United Press International|date=22 March 1982}} He collapsed after attending a religious service in Foggia and died there on 22 March 1982.{{cite news|title=Cardinal Felici, Noted Expert on Church Law for Vatican|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/23/obituaries/cardinal-felici-noted-expert-on-church-law-for-vatican.html|accessdate=26 April 2018|work=The New York Times|agency=Associated Press|date=23 March 1982}} At the time of his death he was a member of several dicasteries, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for Bishops, the Sacred Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments, and the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

His diaries of his work for the Second Vatican Council covering the years 1959 to 1966 were published in 2015.{{cite news|last1=Roncalli|first1=Marco|title=Pericle Felici, il Concilio senza segreti|url=https://www.avvenire.it/agora/pagine/felici- |accessdate=26 April 2018| work=Avvenire|date=14 November 2015 | language=it}}{{cite news|last1=Caruso|first1=Luca| language= it | title=Il Diario conciliare di Monsignor Pericle Felici|url=https://it.zenit.org/articles/il-diario-conciliare-di-monsignor-pericle-felici/| accessdate=26 April 2018|work=Zenit|date=5 October 2015}}

• Council Digest: The Basic Message of Vatican Council II (1981)
• Concilio vitam alere: Meditationes super decretis Concilii Vaticani II (1975), with Trento Longaretti
• Il diario conciliare di monsignor Pericle Felici (2015), edited by Vincenzo Carbone and Agostino Marchetto
• Magistero e Autorità nella Chiesa (1969)

{{Noteslist}}

{{Reflist}}

;Additional sources

• {{cite book|first1=A. |last1=Chiarelli |first2= U. |last2=Meucci |title=Cardinale Pericle Felici (1911-1982) |date=2003| language=it}}
• {{cite book| author-link=Roberto Tucci | first=Roberto | last= Tucci | title=Giovanni XXIII e la preparazione del Concilio Vaticano II nei diari ineditii del direttore della "Civiltà cattolica" padre Roberto Tucci | date= 2012 |language=it}}
• {{cite book | language=fr| title=Actes et acteurs à Vatican II | first= Jan |last=Grootaers |pages=301–13| date=1998| publisher=Peeters Publishers| chapter=Chapter XII: Pericle Felici: Le 'Patron' du Concile | isbn=9789042907065 | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-AjS8BtG9fwC&pg=PA301 }}

• {{YouTube|X8umNO-Dsaw|John Paul I Election and First Blessing}} (Pericle Felici announcing the election of Pope John Paul I)
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL5-DSFirLk RAIStoria Elezione Giovanni Paolo II] (Pericle Felici announcing the election of Pope John Paul II)

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{{succession box |

title=Cardinal Protodeacon |

before=Charles Journet |

after=Sergio Pignedoli |

years=5 March 1973 – 30 June 1979 }}

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before=Dino Staffa |

title=Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura|

after=Aurelio Sabattani |

years=13 September 1977 – 22 March 1982}}

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{{Second Vatican Council}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Felici, Pericle}}

Category:1911 births

Category:1982 deaths

Category:People from Segni

Category:20th-century Italian cardinals

Category:20th-century Italian Roman Catholic titular archbishops

Category:Protodeacons

Category:Pontifical Roman Seminary alumni

Category:Participants in the Second Vatican Council

Category:Prefects of the Apostolic Signatura

Category:Cardinals created by Pope Paul VI