Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Catholic Education, Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Gregorian University, was born on October 11, 1939 in Bródki, Poland. He was ordained for the Archdiocese of Pozna? on May 27, 1963. He worked for three years at Christ the Redeemer Parish in Pozna? before earning a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome.
From 1972 to 1999 he worked at the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura as notary, chancellor, Secretary and Prefect. During this time he was one of the seven members of the commission that studied the draft of the 1983 Code of Canon Law with the Pope, and he taught canon law at the Gregorian and Lateran Universities and the Studio Rotale. He was appointed titular Bishop of Agropoli on December 21, 1982 and consecrated January 6, 1983. He was promoted to Archbishop on December 16, 1991.
On November 15, 1999 he was appointed Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, a position that he ceased on February 28, 2013 upon the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI.
He is presently the Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Gregorian University.
Created and proclaimed Cardinal by John Paul II in the consistory of February 21, 2001, of the Deaconry of S. Nicola in Carcere (St. Nicholas in Prison). He was appointed Cardinal-Priest of San Nicola in Carcere on Febuary 21, 2011.
Member of:
- Congregations: for the Doctrine of the Faith; for Bishops; for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments; for the Evangelization of Peoples;
- Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura;
- Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts;
- Special Council for Oceania of the Secretariat General of the Synod of Bishops.
