VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Cardinal Camillo Ruini, former president of the Italian bishops’ conference and a towering figure in Italy’s post-Second Vatican Council culture wars, died on Tuesday (June 16) at the age of 95.
Ruini had been admitted to the hospital in September to treat kidney problems, and his health declined in the following months as he was being treated at home.
In a telegram, Pope Leo XIV praised Ruini as “an esteemed man of the church” who served his diocese and the Italian church with “generosity.”
“Ruini served the Church with intelligence, pastoral passion and a profound sense of the Church’s mission,” read a statement signed by the president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi.
The late cardinal was a theological conservative but a defender of the Second Vatican Council and open to dialogue with cultural and secular opponents. Until the end of his life he weighed into Italian politics and church life, offering his insight in essays and interviews.
Ruini’s death marks a symbolic sunset of the generation that fought the post-Vatican II battles over truth, relativism and the role of the church in the modern world. The Italian church may be witnessing the end of the age of the culture war cardinal.
The Second Vatic …