Tarcisio Bertone

Who is Tarcisio Bertone?

Tarcisio Pietro Evasio Bertone, S.D.B. is an Italian prelate and a Vatican diplomat. A cardinal of the Catholic Church, he has served as Archbishop of Vercelli from 1991 to 1995, as Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, when Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, was Prefect, Archbishop of Genoa from 2002 to 2006, and as Cardinal Secretary of State from 2006 to 2013. Bertone was elevated to the cardinalate in 2003. On 10 May 2008, he was named Cardinal-Bishop of Frascati.

Cardinal Bertone has been serving as Camerlengo since 2007. In the period between Benedict XVI's resignation on 28 February 2013, and the election of Pope Francis, he served temporarily as the administrator of the Holy See and acting head of state of the Vatican City State. He was considered a contender to succeed Pope Benedict XVI.

Besides his native Italian, Bertone speaks fluent French, Spanish, German and Portuguese. He has some knowledge of English, although he is not fluent, and he can read Polish, Latin, Greek and Hebrew.