Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, paid tribute to the diplomacy of the Servant of God Rafael Merry del Val (1865-1930), a staunch ally of Pope St. Pius X in his efforts to combat Modernism.
Speaking in Assisi on September 7, Archbishop Gallagher recalled that Cardinal Merry del Val was Pope Pius XI’s legate to Assisi in 1926 for the commemoration of the 700th anniversary of St. Francis’s death. A meeting between Cardinal Merry del Val and Italy’s education minister helped pave the way for the Lateran Treaty of 1929, in which Italy recognized the Pope’s sovereignty over Vatican City.
“No agreement is born without a willingness to meet,” said Archbishop Gallagher, and gestures of reconciliation may eventually bear fruit in “just and lasting rules.”