Jean-louis Tauran

Cardinal who announced election of Pope Francis to world

Cardinal Jean-louis Pierre Tauran. Born: 5 April 1943 in Bordeaux, France. Died: 5 July 2018, Hartford in Connecticut, United States, aged 75.

Cardinal Jean-louis Tauran, a champion of interfaith dialogue as a top Vatican diplomat and the man who announced Pope Francis’ election to the world, has died at 75.

The Vatican, which announced his death, said he had been treated for Parkinson’s disease for years.

At his death, Tauran was camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, the official who takes care of the church’s administration during the transition between the death or resignation of a pope and the election of his successor.

But he was best known for his work as the Vatican’s foreign minister, from 1975 to 1983, which gained him a reputation as a tireless behindthe-scenes diplomat. That reputation persuaded Pope Benedict XVI in 2007 to appoint him president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, shortly after the pope gave a speech in which he quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor as calling Islam “evil and inhuman,” offending Muslims and spurring protests against the Roman Catholic Church all over the world.

When Tauran travelled to Saudi Arabia three months ago to meet King Salman and sign a cooperation accord with Saudi authorities, he said that people everywhere were threatened “not by the clash of civilizations, but by the clash of forms of ignorance and radicalism”. Over the years, in his speeches to Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, he reiterated that all men and women of goodwill should work for dialogue and tolerance.

“Dialogue is not for the consumption of the community,” he said in a 2013 interview. “It’s at the service of society.” Tauran made a distinction between Islam and those who commit acts of terrorism in Islam’s name. “It must be clear that the defenders of the oppressed are not the terrorists but the believers, along with men and women of good will who do not profess religion,” he commented after the terror attacks in Paris in 2015.

In 2003 he was the Vatican’s most vocal opponent of the invasion of Iraq, which he called a choice between “the force of law and the law of force,” implying that the United States was veering toward the latter.

In later years he was the Holy See’s librarian and archivist, a job more in line with his frail health.

Jean-louis Tarran was born in Bordeaux, France, on 5 April 1943, to Pierre and Yvonne (Eymas) Tauran. He was ordained a priest in 1969. He entered the Vatican’s diplomatic service in 1975 after studying philosophy, theology and canon law at the Pontifical French Seminary and at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. For 13 years he held posts in the United States, the Middle East and Europe, and he later represented the Holy See at international conferences as the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states.

Made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2003, he participated in the conclaves that elected both Benedict and Francis. As the most senior deacon in the College of Cardinals, it was Tauran who announced from the balcony of St Peter’s on the evening of March 13 2013, that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina had been chosen the first Latin American pope and the first to take the name Francis.

In a sign of esteem and personal closeness, Francis fully participated in Tauran’s funeral. Instead of just presiding over the commendation, as is customary, he attended the entire Mass in St Peter’s Basilica, seated next to Tauran’s coffin.

He is survived by a sister, Geneviève Dubert.

GAIA PIANIGIANI

Over the years, in his speeches he reiterated that all men and women of goodwill should work for dialogue and tolerance

New York Times 2018. Distributed by NYT Syndication Service.