CERRETTI, Bonaventura. – Cardinal, b. at Bardano di Orvieto on 17 June 1872, d. in Rome on 8 May 1933. Ordained priest in 1895, he entered the Secretariat of State in 1902; in February 1904 he left for Mexico as secretary of the Apostolic Delegation; thence he went to Washington as auditor (1906–1914). In 1914 he became the first Apostolic Delegate to Australasia and titular Archbishop of Corinth; in 1917 he was appointed 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 regarding missions in former German colonies, which were threatened by articles 122 and 438 of the Treaty of Versailles (G. Michr, Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums und des römischen Katholizismus, Tübingen 1934). A note from Lord Balfour to Cerretti in early June assured a benevolent interpretation of those perilous stipulations. On this occasion, Cerretti met with the Italian Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando at the Hôtel Ritz on 1 June 1919, and, on behalf of the Holy See, discussed a draft solution to the Roman Question. The negotiations were interrupted by the fall of Orlando’s government on 19 June.
In August 1921 Cerretti became nuncio to France, where he played a major role in securing the legal existence of the French Church and in improving relations between that government and the Holy See. Created Cardinal of Santa Cecilia on 14 December 1925, he was also archpriest of Santa Maria Maggiore (1930) and Bishop of Velletri (1933).