VATICAN CITY — Italian Cardinal Edoardo Menichelli, the retired archbishop of Ancona known for his simple lifestyle and his pastoral care of struggling families, died Oct. 20 at the age of 86.
For 23 years he had worked at the Vatican in the Apostolic Signature, the church’s highest court, and he spent two years after that at the then-Congregation for Eastern Churches.
Simultaneously, he helped at a Rome parish, served as a chaplain at a Rome clinic and as a collaborator with the family counseling program of the faculty of medicine at Rome’s Gemelli hospital.
In 1994 St. John Paul II named him archbishop of Chieti-Vasto and 10 years later named him archbishop of Ancona-Osimo.
At a Mass with workers at a factory in Ancona in April 2013, he said global economic crises would continue cyclically until people started acting ethically with their own money and lifestyles.
“The first thing,” he said, “is to recover simplicity. I’ll give you an example: Is my episcopacy more valid if I wear a gold ring? Is it worth more if I wear a gem-encrusted cross? Or would it no longer be a service to people?”
Pope Francis named him a cardinal in 2015, and he retired two years later.
Born Oct. 14, 1939, in San Severino, he did his high school studies in the seminary there before moving to the regional seminary in Fano. Sent to Rome, he earned a degree in pastoral theology from the Pontifical Lateran University.
After his ordination as a priest in 1965, he worked for three years as an assistant pastor while also teaching religion in a state school. He was assigned to the Apostolic Signature in 1968.
Cardinal Menichelli’s death leaves the College of Cardinals with 246 cardinals, 127 of whom are under the age of 80 and eligible to vote in a conclave.
