Cardinal Farrell has this meaning after the Papst death

If a Pope dies, looks at the world public at a man who should be unknown to many: the Camerlengo. After the death of Pope Francis Is this now Kevin Joseph Farrell, a 77-year-old cardinal born in Irish Dublin. Farrell has been a cardinal treasurer, Camerlengo-or correct: « Cardinal Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church » since 2019. This means that he has significant tasks, first of all this: he has to officially determine the Pope’s death. Once came in a silver hammer usedwith which the Camerlengo knocked on the forehead of the top of the church and asked if it was sleeping.

The hammer is history, the importance of the Camerlengo unchanged: it seals papal study like private rooms and finally takes over the official business during the Sedisvakanz, the Pope’s time. He then also maintains and manages « the goods and temporal rights of the apostolic chair ». He also prepares the burial and organized The pope election – the conclave. In the meantime, Farrell will make sure that nothing penetrates outwards. He will guarantee confidentiality, especially in the Sistine chapel, the location of the choice.

Camerlengo in the Vatican: The cardinal treasurer has this meaning

In recent years, Franziskus Farrell has entrusted with ever further important tasks. In 2016 he had brought him to Rome from the United States, where he was Bishop of Dallas – as prefects of the then new Dikasterium, a Vatican authority, for laypersons, family and life. Since then, the spiritual career has been on the Roman Curia, the powerful administrative apparatus. It was only in November that Francis entrusted him with the Vatican Pension Fund, which is urgently reformed. This requires difficult decisions and « special sensitivity » and « willingness to sacrifice », said the Pope that has now died.

Farrell was, one could say that Francis’s man for the delicate, sometimes scandal (financial) casesof which it in Vatican gave enough. And so the clergy grew over the Radio Vatican Once, he wrote that a conservative attitude with cosmopolitanism, has been associated with a remarkable abundance of power – from financial control to case law, because President of the Supreme Court of the Vatican State has also been Farrell since 2024.

He did not remain unaffected by scandals: for example, he always rejected the fact that he knew, for example, from the past of the former Washingtoner Archbishop Theodore McCarrick released from the clerical stand. Farrell was used – as an auxiliary bishop – together with this in the archbishop’s residence. He also, as a former member of the legionaire Christi, did not want to have known anything of the acts of the founder Marcial Maciel. According to the order, this is said to have sexually misused at least 60 minors. Because of “disagreements”, Farrell, as it was said, had left the order again in 1984.

Can the Camerlengo become a pope after Franziskus death?

Kevin Farrell’s predecessor as a Camerlengo, the Jean-Louis Cardinal Tauran, who died in 2018, became world famous when-in his function as a cardinal protodiacon-he announced on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on March 13, 2013: « Habemus papam ». Afterwards, Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio entered the world stage, as Pope Francis.

In the case of Farrell, whose somewhat older brother Brian also became a Bishop on the Roman Curia, a US medium already speculated that he could be among the Favorites for the successor of Francis condition. However, his name has hardly been mentioned in recent years, it was about the « Papabili », the cardinals that are considered suitable for the papal office. At least in Catholic-conservative circles, it is considered too close Francis confidants. In addition, due to the former proximity to McCarrick and Marcial Maciel, he should have little chance of succession.