Massimo Cacciari no relation cardinal
Episcopate and cardinalate
On 29 December 1979, Pope John Paul II appointed Martini Archbishop of Milan. Martini received his episcopal consecration from John Paul the following 6 January, with Archbishop Eduardo Martínez Somalo and Bishop Ferdinando Maggioni serving as co-consecrators. In the consistory of 2 February 1983, he was assigned the title of Cardinal-Priest of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere. The motto he chose for his coat of arms is translated as "For the love of truth, dare to choose adverse situations".Martini served as relator of the sixth General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in 1983 and as President of the European Bishops' Conference between 1987 and 1993.
In 1987, he began the so-called "cathedra of non-believers" (cattedra dei non-credenti) which was conceived together with the Italian philosopher Massimo Cacciari. It was a series of public dialogues held in Milan with some gnostic or atheist scientists and intellectuals on the matters of bioethics, the social doctrine of the Church and the reasons to believe in God.In 1996, Martini was presented with an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Sciences. In Spain in October 2000, he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences. Martini was admitted as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in November 2000.
Martini was one of a group of like-minded prelates who met annually from 1995 to 2006 in St. Gallen, Switzerland, to discuss reforms with respect to the appointment of bishops, collegiality, bishops' conferences, the primacy of the papacy, and sexual morality; they differed among themselves, but shared the view that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was not the sort of candidate they hoped to see elected at the next conclave.In 2004, Martini reached the Catholic Church's mandatory retirement age and was succeeded in Milan by Dionigi Tettamanzi. At the time of the 2005 conclave, he was 78 years old and hence eligible to vote for the new Pope (being under 80). For years many "progressive" Catholics harboured hopes that he might eventually ascend to the papacy, but when John Paul II died, most commentators believed that his election was unlikely, given his liberal reputation and apparent frailty. Nevertheless, according to La Stampa (an Italian newspaper), he obtained more votes than Joseph Ratzinger during the first round of the election (40 vs. 38). Conversely, an anonymous cardinal's diary stated that he never mustered more than a dozen or so votes, in contrast to another Jesuit cardinal, Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, and quickly withdrew his candidacy. In his book La Chiesa brucia, Andrea Riccardi stated that Martini told him in personal conversation that he had not been in favor of the election of Bergoglio. Upon reaching the age of 80 on 15 February 2007, Martini lost his right to vote in future conclaves.
In June 2012, when Pope Benedict XVI was contemplating retirement and was being urged not to retire by some of his closest confidants, Martini, suffering himself from Parkinson's, urged him to follow through on his decision to resign.After his retirement, Martini moved to the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem to continue his work as a biblical scholar. He returned to Milan in 2008 where he spent his final years in a Jesuit house.
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