At 73, French cardinal Dominique Mamberti is about to live the most important moment in his life: to announce the famous sentence and the name of the happy elected official.
Would he have imagined for a moment that he would one day have to address nearly a billion Catholics, he who once stammered and who still preserves a sickly shyness today? At 73, French cardinal Dominique Mamberti is about to live a moment worthy of a Hollywood scenario. Like King George VI of England, forced to face the microphones despite his stuttering, immortalized in the film “The speech of a king”, this prince of the Church will have to pronounce the formula “Habemus papam” in front of hundreds of millions of faithful around the world. A considerable personal challenge for this man who had to face obstacles comparable to those of the British monarch.
Born under the sun of Rabat and raised in the Corsican reliefs, this lawyer by training today presides over the supreme court of the apostolic signature, the highest Vatican court of justice. His journey led him diplomatic chancelleries under Benoît XVI to the mysteries of the magistracy under François. During this conclave, Mamberti will embody “respect for legal forms” which would have “missed” at the last pontificate, according to the confidences of a French prelate. As the oldest “cardinal deacinal”, it was naturally designated as protodiacre. It is therefore to him-as to his compatriot the Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran in 2013-that the historic mission will return to announce to the world the name of the new sovereign pontiff.
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Legendary shyness
Ironically, this man with the eminent responsibilities suffers from a legendary timidity. “It is so shy that when you are with him, you become shy,” said Cardinal Tauran, his predecessor. The attentive observer will notice that the high French prelate never ventures to improvise, preferring, during his public interventions, to take refuge in the meticulous reading of a prepared text, without ever leaving his leaf.
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-This reserve would find its origin in a stinging of youth. Few are those who know “the extent of the fight he had to lead to get rid of it,” says a close member of the Roman clergy. It is only at the cost of hard work that he would have managed to overcome this obstacle, although his speech still retains a recognizable feature, underlines this same source.
The role of a life
This personal victory will give a special resonance to its appearance on the Balcon de Saint-Pierre, when it is the first to cross the heavy purple curtain of the loggia of blessings at the center of the basilica. Accompanied by two ceremonies, he will then face the immense crowd gathered after the white smoke has risen from the roof of the Sistine Chapel, a signal that a new pope was chosen by the cardinals gathered in conclave.
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He will then have to proclaim the civil name in Latin of the new elected official, then the pontifical name that he will have communicated to him after having come out of the “Chamber of Tears”, this intimate space where Pierre’s new successor will contemplate the weight of the load which now rests on his shoulders. His mission accomplished, Cardinal Mamberti will disappear discreetly, giving way to the new pontiff whose face will then appear in the whole world.
