Cerretti, Bonaventura

CERRETTI, BONAVENTURA. - Cardinal, b. at Bardano di Orvieto on 17 June 1872, d. in 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 moved on to Washington as auditor (1906-1914). First apostolic delegate in Australasia and titular archbishop of Corinth in 1914, he became in 1917 secretary for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs.

He was on a special mission to Paris during the peace conference (May-June 1919) for the defense of 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. Mirbt, Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums und des römischen Katholizismus, Tübingen 1934). A note from Balfour to C., in the first days of June, assured a benevolent interpretation of those dangerous stipulations. On this occasion there took place the meeting (1 June 1919) at the hôtel Ritz of C. with the Italian prime minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, and a plan for the solution of the Roman question was discussed on behalf of the Holy See. The negotiations were interrupted by the fall of minister Orlando (19 June).

In August 1921 C. entered as nuncio in France, where he had a great part in settling the legal existence of the French Church and the relations of that government with the Holy See. Created cardinal of St. Cecilia on 14 Dec. 1925, he was also archpriest of St. Mary Major (1930) and bishop of Velletri (1933).