The Last Lay Cardinal
The Last Lay Cardinal. On March 15, the day recurs when in 1858, the unmarried layman Theodulf Mertel was made the last lay cardinal in Church history. Against his express will, Pius IX made the appointment together with six other candidates. However, Mertel was a lay cardinal only for two months. He asked to be ordained a subdeacon so that he would belong to the clergy but, out of modesty, he refused the ordination to the priesthood. On 16 May, the Pope himself finally ordained him a deacon.
Latin Letters. Mertel was born in 1806 in Allumiere near Rome. His father, Isidor Mörtl was a baker from Eglfing in Bavaria. His Maria Franziska née Lunadei, hailed from a well to do local family. Isidor Mörtl emigrated to Allumiere because it was a papal mining settlement where Alunite was mined. Throughout his life, Mertel kept in touch with his father's Bavarian homeland. He wrote Latin letters to the local Father Sauter of Eglfing and was annoyed that Sauter answered his letters in German.
Lay Prelate. As a young man, Mertel started working for the Roman Curia as a lawyer and judge. In 1843, he received the Minor orders, a condition for entering the Rota Romana, the papal court. He was appointed the President of the Papal Civil Court, receiving the title of prelate, although he was a layman. Before becoming a cardinal, he also was the Papal States’ Minister of the Interior and Minister of Justice.
Infallibility. As a cardinal, Mertel participated in the First Vatican Council. In the debates on infallibility, he advised formulation of the dogma in extremely precise terms stating that – quote - "it is not acceptable that everything that popes have done and said should be considered dogma." He supported the papal infallibility but urged prudence. Quote: "We must be careful that zealots without discernment and advocates of excessive views do not cause greater problems than opponents."
Anticlerical Riots. After the end of the Papal States in 1870, Mertel convinced the wavering Pius IX that he should not leave Rome. The pontiff later described him as "the best man of the 19th century" and appointed him executor of his will. In this capacity, Mertel presided over the nightly transfer of Pius IX's body from the Vatican to San Lorenzo fuori le mura in July 1881 where Pius IX is still buried. Mertel had to face anticlerical fanatics who tried to throw the coffin into the Tiber.
Conclave. Mertel took part in the Conclave that elected Leon XIII. The son of a Bavarian baker crowned him with the tiara in the Sistine Chapel because the Cardinal Protodeacon was ill. Almost unable to walk and nearly blind, Mertel died in 1899 at 93, the oldest cardinal. Even the New York Times reported the death of the "cardinal who was never ordained a priest."