Rorate Caeli

Tauran back in business

Fifteen months ago, the unification of the presidencies of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the Pontifical Council for Culture, under the joint chairmanship of Cardinal Poupard, was considered a first step in the restructuring of the Curia. However, there have never been further steps: the overall arrangement of both Councils has remained completely in place.

Today, the Holy Father ended the joint chairmanship of both commissions, by naming Cardinal Tauran, Archivist and Librarian of the Apostolic See, to head the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue. Tauran was a very important member of the Sodano entourage (as Secretary of Relations with States, Foreign Secretary of the Vatican, a position now occupied by another Frenchman, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti), but was consigned to a golden early retirement as Archivist and Librarian of the Holy See in 2003.

Cardinal Tauran will begin his activities in the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue on September 1, 2007. He will be replaced in his current positions by the present prefect of the Apostolic Library, Raffaele Farina, who in his turn will be replaced in his position by the Vice-Prefect of the Ambrosian Library, the Library of the Archdiocese of Milan, Cesare Pasini.