CARDINAL MARIO GRECH
Cardinal Mario Grech, 68, is the secretary general of the Synod of Bishops.
He comes from Gozo, a tiny island that is part of Malta, the smallest country in the European Union. From small beginnings, he has gone on to big things, appointed by Pope Francis to be secretary general of the Synod of Bishops – a heavyweight position within the Vatican.
Initially viewed as a conservative, Grech has become a torchbearer of Pope Francis’ reforms within the Church for years, moving sharply with the times.
In 2008, several gay Maltese citizens declared they were leaving the Church in protest at what they saw as the anti-LGBT stance of the then-pontiff, Pope Benedict.
Grech offered them little sympathy at the time, but speaking in the Vatican in 2014, he called for the Church to be more accepting of its LGBT members and creative in finding new ways to address contemporary family situations.
The following day, Pope Francis tapped him on the shoulder at breakfast and complimented him for the speech, marking him out for future promotion.
In 2018, Grech spoke about how he relished the challenges faced by the Church.
“We are going through a period of change. And to me, this is a very positive thing,” he told the Malta Today newspaper.
He warned that it would not remain relevant to modern society if it did not move beyond nostalgia for the past.
His views have won him some high-profile enemies, and conservative Cardinal Gerhard Muller memorably turned on him in 2022, belittling his academic profile and accusing him of going against Catholic doctrine.
Grech’s allies insist he has friends in both the conservative and moderate camps and that, because of his high-profile role, he is known by many cardinals, a clear advantage in a conclave where so many cardinals are relative unknowns to each other.
Coming from a tiny country, his election as pope would avoid any diplomatic or geopolitical headaches.
He has stressed that he always seeks consensus over confrontation. But he has sometimes courted controversy. In 2016, he led a pilgrimage to pray for rain after meeting farmers worried about drought.
A local newspaper said it was “a throwback to prehistoric attempts at inducing rain” but a few days after the event, it did indeed start to rain.
Source: CNA
