GASPARRI, PIETRO. - Cardinal, Secretary of State to two popes, principal architect of the codification of the CIC and of the Lateran Pacts.
Born at Capovallizza (municipality of Usain [Macerata]) on 5 May 1852; died in Rome on 18 Nov. 1934. He began his studies (1861) at the Seminary of Nepi, from which he passed (1870) to the Roman Seminary, being ordained a priest on 31 March 1877. He began his teaching on the Sacraments and on juridical subjects in Rome at the same Semi-
Roman Seminary and at the schools of Propaganda Fide. From 1880 to 1888 he taught canon law at the Catholic Institute of Paris. This is the period of his scientific maturation and of his greatest individual output. Indeed, from this time date the canonical treatises that are still classics: De matrimonio (2 vols., Paris-Lyon 1892; 2nd ed. ibid. 1904; 3rd [post CIC], Vatican City 1932); De S. Ordinatione (2 vols., Paris-Lyon 1893-94); De S.ma Eucharistia (2 vols., ibid. 1897); the pamphlet De la valeur des ordinations anglicanes (Paris 1895, on a question then of great practical utility and much debated).
Elected titular archbishop of Caesarea in Palestine (1898), he was sent as apostolic delegate successively to Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. In 1901 he was recalled to Rome to assume the office of Secretary of the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs.
To him is attributed the idea of the codification of the CIC, expressed in his first audience with Pope Pius X. Although recently the name of Card. G. Gennari has been put forward in this regard as the first originator, the opinion set out above remains the historically most accredited one, further supported by the confession of Card. G. himself, made a few days before his death, in a public report on the occasion of the International Juridical Congress, held on the initiative of the Pontifical Institutum utriusque iuris (v. bibl.).
This great work, begun on 13 Nov. 1904, occupied 14 years of Card. G.'s life, the years, one might say, most fruitful in the field of his public scientific output (v. CODEX IURIS CANONICI).
On 16 Dec. 1907 he was elevated to the purple and from secretary he then became relator of the Commission for codification, which, as is well known, brought to completion the work of the new CIC, promulgated on 28 June 1917 and put into force on 19 May 1918. To the CIC Card. G. added a preface, which succinctly narrates the history of ecclesiastical legislation, an analytical index, and, in some editions, the notes of the sources, a work which he would expand, editing the edition of the CIC Fontes, whose first 6 vols. saw the light from 1923 to 1932; the VII, already ready at the author's death, saw the light in 1935 under the care of Card. Giustino Seredi, who oversaw the publication of vols. VIII-IX, thus completing the collection, which however has no critical value, but is merely a compilation, and, like the preface and the index, has no character of authenticity.
At the end of the codification Card. P. G. was also appointed first president of the Commission for the authentic interpretation of the canons of the CIC, established by motu proprio of 17 Oct. 1917.
Meanwhile, with the election of Benedict XV, already his colleague in work at the Secretariat of State, after the brief interlude of Card. Ferrata, lasting 36 days, Card. G. was elected Secretary of State. At the death of Benedict XV (v.), with whom he had shared the responsibilities of government and the inspiration of the greatest acts of that pontificate, so fruitful especially for the resumption of diplomatic relations with many nations, in the subsequent conclave the strong personality of Card. G. concentrated in himself a good number of votes, with which he then favored the candidacy of Card. Ratti, who, elected pope, reconfirmed him as his Secretary of State until 10 Febr. 1930.
The greatest event, after the codification, in which Card. G. took part is the Conciliation, on which he worked from the days of Versailles, through Msgr. Cerretti, inspiring Pius XI's gesture of pacification, blessing from the outer loggia on the day of his election, and favoring approaches from as early as 6 Aug. 1926; approaches which, after a notable interruption over the question of education, were resumed in the form of negotiations on 3 Sept. 1928 and were concluded on 11 Febr. 1929.
In the final phase, on 22 Nov. 1928, the Pope delegated Card. G. himself for the official negotiations and for the signing of the acts which G. signed as plenipotentiary. A year later, due to personal differences, he ceased from his office of Secretary of State, in which he had acquired a well-merited reputation as a great diplomat, and spent his last years in retirement and study, surrounded by the veneration and admiration of the ecclesiastical world and of many lay circles, even those outside the Church. From these years dates his Cathechismus Catholicus (Rome 1930).
Already decorated with the collar of the S.ma Annunziata, on 20 Apr. 1933 he was appointed a member of the Academy of Italy for the juridical disciplines. His body rests in his native Ussita.
It is premature today to give a definitive judgment of his activity as theologian and canonist, diplomat and codifier, but it is certain that G. was in the ecclesiastical world one of the greatest figures of the first thirty years of the century. For knowledge of his intimate life, his Diary, which is still preserved unpublished, may be of great value.
Bibliography6 works
Pietro Palazzini