Who are John Paul II’s last men in the Vatican today?

Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa stepped down recently as preacher of the Papal Household at the age of 90, after 44 years of service. He was one of the last figures from John Paul II's pontificate still serving in the Vatican under Francis.

Aleteia looks back at four figures from the John Paul II years who continue to set the pace of the current pontificate.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who turns 91 on January 30, remains a very active and central figure in the Vatican as Dean of the Sacred College. This position, which is not necessarily held by the oldest cardinal but by a figure with solid experience within the Curia, gives Cardinal Re a high profile in Vatican activities. He celebrates the funerals of Rome's cardinals, and also led the Eucharistic Prayer at the funeral of Benedict XVI on January 5, 2023, even though this Mass was symbolically presided over by Pope Francis.

Cardinal Re, who joined the papal diplomatic service in 1963, was a highly valued servant during the pontificate of John Paul II, for whom he was a close collaborator as Substitute for the Secretariat of State from 1989 to 2000. He then served as Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops from 2000 to 2010, covering the last five years of John Paul II's pontificate and the first five years of Benedict XVI's pontificate.

Despite his advanced age, he remains very present in Vatican public life, attending numerous conferences to defend the principle of continuity between popes.

This Polish cardinal is currently prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity and heavily involved in aid to Ukraine. He was a familiar face to those who followed the end of John Paul II's pontificate. Called to Rome in 1998 to serve the Office of Liturgical Celebrations, he spent the final years of the 263rd pope's long pontificate as close as possible to his Polish compatriot. He accompanied with palpable tension on his face the liturgical gestures of a pope increasingly suffering and limited by disability.

He continued this service throughout Benedict XVI's pontificate, taking on the task of distributing food to Rome's poor after Mother Teresa's beatification in 2003. Informed of the Polish prelate's commitment to charity, Pope Francis appointed him Papal Almoner in the summer of 2013. And, to everyone's surprise, he created him cardinal in June 2018, putting closeness to the poor at the heart of his pontificate.

The new Constitution of the Curia, promulgated in 2022, made the dicastery for the Service of Charity, headed by the Pole, the third in the protocol order of the organs of the Roman Curia.

At almost 80 years of age — a threshold he will cross on January 22, 2025, which will remove him from the group of cardinal electors — the Archbishop of Vienna remains a central figure in the life of the Catholic Church and the Vatican, with the Pope relying on his loyalty and intellectual openness. He was a close collaborator of Cardinal Ratzinger, notably during the drafting of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. 

John Paul II appointed him auxiliary bishop of Vienna in 1991, then archbishop in 1995. His first years in Vienna were very difficult. He inherited a troublesome dossier of clerical pedophilia, and proved inflexible in the face of resistance to his handling of problems. In 1998, Pope John Paul II created him cardinal against the backdrop of the scandal surrounding the behavior of his predecessor, Cardinal Groër, who was accused of abusing numerous young people, but died in 2003 without having been tried.

During Francis's pontificate, the Austrian cardinal established himself as a defender of the pontiff's reforms, and was very active and decisive during the Synod on the Family (2014-2015) — which advocated discernment on a case-by-case basis to give communion to remarried divorcees — and the Synod on the Amazon (2019).

Known for his compassion for homosexuals, he affirms that he is not opposed to the presence of married priests in the Church. However, he also firmly criticizes the dynamic of democratization of the Church carried forward by the German synodal path. It’s a posture that may seem paradoxical, but which converges with that of Pope Francis, and shows his concern to avoid divisions in the Church.

This 80-year-old Uruguayan layman no longer holds a position within the Vatican administration, but has been Uruguay's ambassador to the Holy See since 2021. Having entered the service of the Roman Curia in 1971 under Paul VI, this married family man became the first lay head of an office in the Vatican in 1977, within the Pontifical Council for the Laity (now the Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life). John Paull II later promoted him to under-secretary of this body.

He was active at the Vatican during the entire pontificate of the saintly Polish pope, participating as an expert in numerous Synods and international events, including the World Youth Day.

He then became Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America under Benedict XVI, a position traditionally held by a priest.

He was confirmed in this position by Francis, who reinforced it by giving him the prerogatives of a vice-president. The Uruguayan had spotted Cardinal Bergoglio's talents back in 2007, during the Aparecida conference in Brazil. “Pope Benedict inaugurated and gave the basic orientation to Aparecida. Bergoglio took it all up with the bishops and completed it, giving it this coherence, this profile of Latin American ecclesial awareness,” he noted at the time, six years before the election of the first pope from his native continent.

In a sign of their deep friendship, Pope Francis personally presided over his 50th wedding anniversary Mass in Rome in July 2019.