MERRY DEL VAL, RAFAEL. – A Spanish cardinal of noble family, b. in London on 10 Oct. 1865, d. in Rome on 26 Feb. 1930. He completed his early studies in England and Belgium; at eighteen, having decided to enter the ecclesiastical state, he entered the College of Ushaw (England), later transferring in 1885 to Rome at the Pontifical Scottish College, but Leo XIII instead decided that he should enter the Pontifical Academy of Ecclesiastical Nobles, where he was ordained on 30 Dec. 1888.
Even before his ordination the Pope attached him to three special missions to the courts of London, Berlin, and Vienna, so that he was made a monsignor while still a subdeacon. On 1 Jan. 1892 Leo XIII called him to his side as a secret chamberlain participant, later sending him—at the age of thirty-two and not yet a bishop—as an extraordinary apostolic delegate to Canada. The tact with which the young prelate carried out this difficult mission earned him, upon his return, the consecration as titular archbishop of Nicaea and the appointment as president of the Academy of Ecclesiastical Nobles (1900).
Secretary of the Conclave that elected Pius X, the latter immediately entrusted him with the duties of pro-Secretary of State, and a few weeks later (9 Nov.) raised him as his “first creature” to the sacred purple and made him his direct collaborator. Thus, for the entire duration of Pope Sarto’s pontificate, Merry del Val served as his Secretary of State, associating his name with the complex religious and political activity of the Pope of Riese. The eleven years during which Merry del Val, sustained by Pius X’s most affectionate confidence—which he reciprocated with filial devotion—held the most important office of the Roman Curia are likewise linked to the biography of the cardinal and to Church history. A most faithful interpreter of papal will, he led the harsh struggle against Modernism to its victorious conclusion; he gave the greatest impetus to Catholic Action and carried out a radical reform of the dicasteries of the Apostolic See.
In the more strictly political sphere, he progressively maintained the intransigence of Leo XIII and Cardinal Rampolla toward the Italian state, going so far as to abolish, at least in practice, the *non expediti*, thus opening the way for Catholics to enter Parliament through the so-called Gentiloni Pact. It was also due to his consummate diplomatic skill that the Vatican was able to restore relations with most of the Powers, and on 24 June 1914 he succeeded in concluding a concordat with Serbia.
An open rupture, however, occurred with France following President Loubet’s visit to the Quirinale, carried out despite the papal prohibition against Catholic heads of state coming to Rome. This led to the denunciation of the Concordat and the complete separation between Church and state in France, aggravated by violent anticlerical persecution. To this grave situation Merry del Val responded with resolute energy—even if this meant abandoning the pro-French policy of his predecessor—and obtained that on 25 Feb. 1906 Pius X himself consecrated in St. Peter’s the first fourteen French bishops elected after the separation. Alongside his duties as Secretary of State, he also fulfilled with equal zeal other highly important offices, including those of administrator of the goods of the Holy See, prefect of the Apostolic Palaces, and archpriest of the Vatican Basilica.
In the Conclave of 1914 many cardinals cast their votes for him, but Cardinal Della Chiesa—already his collaborator in the Secretariat of State—was elected, and the new pope, Benedict XV, appointed him Secretary of the Holy Office, which, while it (as was natural) reduced his influence in the political sphere, secured for him a preeminent role in the governance of the Church. He returned to political activity in 1926, when, as legate of Pius XI to the Franciscan centenary celebrations in Assisi, he exchanged significant speeches with Pietro Fedele, the Italian minister of Public Instruction representing the government—speeches that, as they were, proved to be the prelude to the forthcoming reconciliation.
One must also recall his profound piety and the priestly ministry he faithfully pursued even during the decade of his greatest authority; he took particular care of a Catholic youth association in Trastevere, to which he devoted, without interruption, several afternoon hours for more than twenty-five years. He died almost suddenly; his remains rest in the Vatican Grottoes.
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