Giuseppe Betori

Betori was appointed to replace Ennio Antonelli, who had been appointed as president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, as archbishop of Florence by Pope Benedict XVI on 8 September 2008.[1] He received the pallium from Pope Benedict on 29 June 2009, the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul in Rome.

On 5 November 2011 Betori survived an apparent assassination attempt. An unidentified man confronted the archbishop outside his office, shot and wounded the prelate's secretary, and waved a gun at the archbishop before escaping. Fr Paolo Brogi, the archbishop's secretary, was reportedly in satisfactory condition after surgery to repair an abdominal wound. Betori and witnesses stated that the gunman said something as he gestured toward the prelate with his firearm, but they could not understand his intent.[2]

On 10 December 2011 he was appointed a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture for a five-year renewable term.[3]

On 6 January 2012 it was announced that Betori would become a cardinal on 18 February. He was created Cardinal-Priest of San Marcello. In addition to his duties at Culture, Betori was appointed a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education. On 17 May 2014, Pope Francis nominated him a member of the Pontifical Council of the Laity.[4]

He was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2013 papal conclave that elected Pope Francis.

In a 2007 speech, he identified as the new enemies of Christianity: abortion, euthanasia, the negation of sexual duality and of a family based on marriage.[5]

Betori has favoured a ban on the ordination of homosexuals, saying the word discrimination can be used where there is a right, but that a vocation is not a right but a gift.[6]

According to Abbé Claude Barthe, Betori is a member of the paleoliberal wing of the Roman Curia, who along with Giovanni Battista Re, constituted a kind of internal curial opposition to the decisions and policies of Pope Benedict XVI.[7]