CERRETTI, BONAVENTURA. — Cardinal, born at Bardano di Orvieto on 17 June 1872, died at Rome on 8 May 1933. Ordained a priest in 1895, he entered the Secretariat of State in 1902; in February 1904 he left for Mexico as secretary of that delegation; from there he went to Washington as auditor (1906–1914). First apostolic delegate in Australasia and titular archbishop of Corinth in 1914, in 1917 he became secretary for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs.
He was on a special mission to Paris during the Peace Conference (May–June 1919) to defend the interests of the Catholic Church with regard to the missions in the former German colonies, threatened by Articles 122 and 438 of the Treaty of Versailles (C. Mirbi, Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums und des römischen Katholizismus, Tübingen 1934). A note from Balfour to C., at the beginning of June, assured a benevolent interpretation of those dangerous stipulations. On this occasion, C. met (1 June 1919) at the Hôtel Ritz with the Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, and, on behalf of the Holy See, a plan for resolving the Roman Question was discussed. The negotiations were interrupted by the fall of Minister Orlando (19 June).
In August 1921 C. entered France as nuncio, where he played a major role in regularizing the legal status of the French Church and the relations of that government with the Holy See. Created cardinal of S. Cecilia on 14 December 1925, he was also archpriest of S. Maria Maggiore (1930) and bishop of Velletri (1933).