Silvio Cardinal Oddi
Distinguished Professor,
It was with keen interest that I read your work “Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII to the Roman Patriciate and Nobility.”
The thought of the great Pope Pius XII, as one can see in the documents mentioned, remains entirely relevant, and you have taken the good initiative of presenting it to today’s public along with opportune annotations. It is useful to remind people, as Paul VI himself did after the Second Vatican Council, that the teachings his predecessor addressed to the Roman Patriciate and Nobility continue to be fully valid.
In the comments and documentation with which you facilitate a more complete understanding of the full range of Pius XII’s magisterium, one can see great erudition and sureness of thought, justly highlighted by the well-known French historian Georges Bordonove in his foreword to [the French edition of] this work.
I am certain that I am performing a good deed by recommending your book to all who wish to deepen their knowledge of the wise and enlightening teachings of Pius XII.
Hoping your timely book will have a wide circulation, I send you cordial greetings.
Silvio Cardinal Oddi
(Translation from the Italian original below)
Biographical data of His Eminence Cardinal Oddi
Silvio Cardinal Oddi was born in Morfasso, in the province of Piacenza, Italy, in 1910. Having completed his studies at the Angelicum of Rome, he entered the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy. At the service of the Secretariat of State, the still very young Father Oddi began a brilliant career in Vatican diplomacy.
Cardinal Oddi speaks several languages and is one of the best informed ecclesiastics on the Middle Fast, where he held diplomatic posts in several countries. On behalf of the Holy See, he also undertook very delicate missions in Yugoslavia and in Cuba immediately after the accession of the communist regime. In 1969, while Apostolic Nuncio in Belgium, he received the news of his elevation to the cardinalate. Since then, he has resided in Rome, holding high offices in the Vatican Curia. In 1979, John Paul II made him Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, a position he held until 1985. He is presently Pontifical Legate for the Sanctuary of Saint Francis of Assisi.
Cardinal Oddi, an expert on life in the Vatican, of which he has been a protagonist in the last decades, is often interviewed by the Italian and international press on the situation of the Church in our days.
10-II-1993
