The Wonderful Spiritual Testament of Cardinal Camillo Ruini and His Confession of Discomfort with Pope Francis Regarding Reopening Wounds Healed After the Council

(ZENIT News / Rome, 06.19. 2026). – Cardinal Camillo Ruini, a highly esteemed figure in the Church and a great intellectual pastor, died in Rome on Tuesday, June 16. He was the right-hand man of Saint John Paul II in the governance of the Diocese of Rome (serving as the Pope’s Vicar for his Diocese as Bishop of Rome) and as head of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), one of the most influential in the world. On Thursday, June 18, Pope Leo XIV celebrated the funeral Mass and delivered a powerful homily dedicated to the widely respected clergyman. In that context, the spiritual testimony that ZENIT offers, translated into English, has been made public. Among the topics covered is sensitivity towards Pope Francis.

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Spiritual Testimony of Cardinal Camillo Ruini

Thanksgiving and a plea for repentance to God and to my brethren.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

I thank you, Lord, for the long life you have given me, for making me a Christian, for my vocation to the priesthood, and for my many years as a priest and, later, as a Bishop. I thank you for having been and continuing to be so loved by my parents, Francesco and Iolanda; by my sister Donata; by my grandparents, Idelberto and Maria, and by my brother Guido, with whom I have lived: their love has given me strength and security throughout my life. I thank you for my other grandmother, Emma; for my uncles Riccardo and Tina; for my cousin Carlo and his wife Carla; and for the rest of my family. I thank you for having been loved and cared for with such dedication by my faithful Pierina, loved and cared for with great generosity by my secretary, Father Mauro, now Bishop of Tivoli, by Mara, who wanted to remain by my side even after the end of my term as Cardinal Vicar, by Father Nicola, Angela, Claudia of the CEI, and many other of my collaborators. And, in my family life, by Palmizia, Sergio, and Raffaella.

I thank you, Lord, for my friends in Sassuolo, for my parish priest, Monsignor Zelindo Pelluti, and for Father Dino Carretti, who guided and accompanied me on my path toward the vocation to the priesthood. I thank you for the years of formation. At the Capranica College and the Gregorian University, I thank the Superiors, the professors, the colleagues and friends I have had, in particular the deceased Father Osvaldo Ronzon, Father Valerio Massucci, Father Nicola Battarelli and Father Nicolino Barra. I thank you for my service as a priest and professor in Reggio Emilia, for my Bishops Beniamino Socche and, above all, Gilberto Baroni, from whom I have received and learned so much, for the numerous priests and lay people, men and women of various generations, in particular for those who are still closest to me today: from them I have received no less than I have tried to give. I thank you for Vatican Council II, for having lived it and for having made others live it with joy in Reggio Emilia, and also for having given me the clarity and strength to oppose the post-conciliar drifts.

Then, Lord, when a certain weariness threatened to overwhelm my priesthood, you had mercy on me and, to my surprise and dismay, called me to the episcopate: it was a grace as great as it was undeserved, a renewal and a revival of my vocation. Since then, many have multiplied those who pray for me and my intentions, making up for the poverty of my prayer. Since then, in a short time, I have become a public figure, although I have always tried to remain a simple person: in this sense, to remain the same as before.

John Paul II was a very special grace for me. From the beginning of his ministry, I saw realized in him what I had vaguely sensed within myself and what Paul VI had already pointed out, amidst much resistance and misunderstanding. However, I never imagined I would become his direct collaborator, as I was for more than twenty years, from the autumn of 1984, when the Loreto Meeting was being prepared, until his death. In John PaulIII experienced Your presence, Lord; I was able to feel firsthand the unity in prayer, the inseparability of prayer, life, and apostolate, the value of the faith that guides history, the capacity to love and to forgive. Through my own fault, Lord, I tried to follow his example in those things that suited my inclination, but much less in those that would have remedied my most serious shortcomings.

Specifically, during twenty-two years of my ministry in Rome, in the CEI and in the Vicariate, I hope, Lord, that I acted not for my personal interests, but for the objectives entrusted to me and which I wholeheartedly shared: thus I overcame considerable resistance and hostility especially at the beginning, both in the CEI and in the Vicariate I acknowledge and confess, however, that I sometimes acted with substantial force, in ways that were mostly — though not always — kind: I ask forgiveness of the Lord and of all the people, living and dead, whom I caused pain. But I must thank you, Lord, for the people with whom I have had the joy of collaborating: in particular, Monsignor Giovanni Battista Re and Monsignor Stanislaw Dziwisz, the secretaries of the CEI, Monsignor Dionigi Tettamanzi, Monsignor Ennio Antonelli and Monsignor Giuseppe Betori, the Vicars General of Rome, Monsignor Remigio Ragonesi, Monsignor Cesare Nosiglia, Monsignor Luigi Moretti, Annick Johnson, Dino Boffo, Sergio Belardinelli, Vittorio Sozzi, the late Monsignor Giuseppe Cacciari, Cardinal Angelo Scola, but also many others, including the parish priests of Rome and the directors of the offices of the CEI and the Vicariate: I remain very close to quite a few of them.

It has been eight years since I became emeritus, and I thank you, Lord, for having granted me all this time to prepare myself for the supreme encounter with you, but I also ask your forgiveness for having made very little use of that time for that purpose. To tell the truth, until now I have been a very busy emeritus, due to the various commissions I have received and, above all, because I have dedicated myself to the passion for study that arose in my adolescence and that has always accompanied me since. The themes I have chosen, God and life beyond death, in themselves prepare one for the encounter with You, and the two books in which I have condensed them are intended to be a contribution, however minimal, to evangelization. However, in reality, the

dedication to writing has not favored the freedom of my spirit for prayer.

But the causes of this limited freedom are, above all, my sins and the weakness of my response to the Lord’s love: these things I would like to confess, hoping not to scandalize anyone, but rather to encourage others to pray for me and to do better than I have. I confess, before You, the smallness of my faith. From childhood I have had the gift of faith and I have prayed; faith has accompanied and sustained me until today, especially when it came to accepting the vocation to the priesthood. Even as a high school student, I dedicated myself to defending the faith, without timidity or fear. I have tried to deepen my understanding of its content and its reasons through study, and to explain and defend them with passion and conviction. Despite all this, however, in the deepest recesses of my heart I have always been tempted precisely in matters of faith, although, by the grace of God, I believe I have never yielded to temptation. Specifically, my faith has been and continues to be insufficient to sustain and animate a life that should be entirely dedicated to God and to my brethren. Lord, have mercy on me and strengthen me in faith in this final and decisive stage of my earthly journey.

Virgin Mary, our sweet Mother, intercede so that the love of God may fill my heart and grant me true freedom. «It is more blessed to give than to receive» (Acts 20:35): this saying of Jesus has always been almost self-evident to me, a natural inclination, also linked to the fact that I have never been in need. Thus, thanks to the great generosity of my parents and my sister, during all the time I was a priest in Reggio I was able to work practically for free. Later I received a lot of money, but I did not increase the family’s wealth, allocating the surplus to helping people in need. However, even in this I did not put into practice the Lord’s invitation to leave everything to follow Him, nor did I renounce a simple but comfortable standard of living.

I have always been a «papist» and I thank the Lord and my mentors for this, especially the professors at the Gregorian University. After John Paul II, I collaborated for three years with Benedict XVI and I thank him wholeheartedly, also for the affection he still shows me. When Pope Francis was elected, I rejoiced and, to the best of my ability, immediately became one of his supporters. I also rejoice and thank him for his extraordinary evangelizing zeal. I must confess, however, that I find myself in a state of discomfort, not for personal reasons, but because I struggle to understand some of his directions, which seem to reopen wounds that, after the Council, had barely healed. I humbly ask the Lord to convince me inwardly that the Church is His and that He Himself cares for her, beyond our human perspectives.

Lord, help me to accept the small cross of my decline, for now physical, and the gradual disappearance of my role: it is the grace you now give me to better prepare myself for my encounter with You.

Lord, only You know why You called me; Your love, totally free, undeserved, creative. Grant that I may not reject it; forgive me also for having evaded and disappointed it already too much. Lord, faithful God, do not tire of loving me and calling me, of converting me. Father rich in mercy, grant me and all my brothers in humanity the grace of final perseverance.

Rome, June 3, 2016

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Camillo, Cardenal Ruini