Gaetano De Lai

Gaetano Cardinal De Lai ( born July 26, 1853 in Malo at Vicenza; † October 24, 1928 in Rome ) was a Cardinal of the Catholic Church.

Life and work

Gaetano De Lai was ordained on April 16, 1876 Priests of the Diocese of Vicenza. They summoned him to the Roman Curia, where he the office of Pro- Secretary and on 11 November 1903 adopted on 25 June 1903, the Office of the Secretary of the Congregation for the interpretation of the Council of Trent ( risen in today's Congregation for the Clergy ).

Pope Pius X appointed Gaetano De Lai in 1907 a cardinal deacon of San Nicola in Carcere, 1908 Secretary of the Consistorial (now the Congregation for Bishops ). On November 27, 1911, he opted for the Cardinal Bishop of Sabina and received on December 17 of the year the episcopal ordination personally by the Pope.

De Lai participated in the conclave of 1914, Pope Benedict XV. chosen, as the conclave of 1922, in which Pope Pius XI. was chosen. From 1919 he was Subdean the College of Cardinals. He died in 1928 after a long and serious illness in Rome.

The Cardinal is one of the curial support of the Church's renewal under Pope Pius X.

The " Journal of Policy", Volume 25, 1935, published by the University of Munich policy, Gaetano De Lai referred to as " indisputably important figure of the Sacred College under Pius X. "

The Protestant theologian Kurt Nowak called Gaetano De Lai in his 2001 book about Adolf von Harnack, " the head of the anti-modernist and intransigent direction."

Émile Poulat sees Gaetano de Lai the "truly strong man " of the pontificate of Pius X.