Bergamo, Italy, May 27, 2016 / 14:04 pm
Cardinal Loris Capovilla, St. John XXIII's personal secretary, died May 26 at the age of 100. He had been the closest collaborator of the sainted "Good Pope John" for ten years.
Pope Francis sent his condolences in a telegram to Bishop Francesco Beschi of Bergamo. He said that Cardinal Capovilla "witnessed the Gospel with joy and served the Gospel with docility, first in the Diocese of Venice, and later with careful affection at the end of John XXIII's life." He called the cardinal "a zealous guardian and sound interpreter" of St. John XXIII's memory.
Capovilla's long-term service turned into a lifelong commitment when John XXIII left all of his papers to his faithful secretary. Pope Francis named Archbishop Capovilla a cardinal during the Feb. 22, 2014 consistory on the eve of John XXIII's canonization.
The cardinal lived in the Diocese of Bergamo. Cardinal Capovilla recently became sick due to age and had to be transferred to the Beato Palazzolo Clinic of Bergamo. When Pope Francis heard this, he made a May 16 phone call to the hospital to speak with the secretary of his predecessor.
Senator Marco Beato, an Italian MP who was a very good friend of the cardinal, was present with the ailing man.
"Fr. Loris could not talk anymore, but when he recognized the voice of the Pope, his face brightened. He had just enough strength to thank the Pope," Beato told L'Eco di Bergamo, the Bergamo diocese's newspaper.
Cardinal Capovilla's story at the side of John XXIII starts in 1953.
Since 1940 he had been a priest of the Patriarchate of Venice and editor-in-chief of its magazine La Voce di San Marco. When he was appointed Patriarch of Venice, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli chose the priest as his personal secretary.
Cardinal Capovilla recounted how he was chosen for the position in a conversation with Fr. Ezio Bolis, director of the John XXIII Foundation, published in the book Loris F. Capovilla: I miei anni con Papa Giovanni XXIII.