Giovanni Battista Re (born 30 January 1934) is an Italian Catholic prelate who served as Dean of the College of Cardinals from 2020 until 2026. He was made a cardinal in 2001 and served as prefect of the Congregation for Bishops from 2000 to 2010. As the most senior cardinal bishop in attendance, he chaired the 2013 conclave that elected Pope Francis.
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Early years
Born in Borno, Italy, the son of the carpenter Matteo Re (1908–2012), Giovanni Battista Re was ordained a priest by Archbishop Giacinto Tredici in Brescia on 3 March 1957. He holds a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, and taught in the Brescia seminary. To prepare for a diplomatic career he entered the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in 1961.
Curial service
Re has been a member of the Roman Curia since 1963, where he served as personal secretary to Archbishop Giovanni Benelli. He was elevated to monsignor and served in various diplomatic positions before being named both bishop of the titular see of Forum Novum and secretary of the Congregation for Bishops on 9 October 1987. Pope John Paul II administered the episcopal consecration on 7 November.
Sostituto
On 12 December 1989, he became sostituto ("substitute") for general affairs of the Vatican's Secretariat of State, one of the key positions under the Cardinal Secretary of State.
Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops
Re was named on 16 September 2000 to head the Congregation for Bishops and the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. Re became Cardinal-Priest of Ss. XII Apostoli in the consistory held 21 February 2001, named first among those elevated. The next year, on 1 October, he was named Cardinal Bishop of Sabina-Poggio Mirteto. Re automatically lost his position as prefect on 2 April 2005 upon the death of John Paul II and was reconfirmed in office by Pope Benedict XVI on 21 April 2005. He held both positions until 30 June 2010.
In 1996, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, notified Catholics in his diocese that they would incur automatic excommunication if they belonged to groups that espoused beliefs that contradicted Catholic teaching, specifying Call to Action Nebraska, Catholics for a Free Choice, the Freemasons, the Hemlock Society, Planned Parenthood, and others. Call to Action challenged his authority to make such a declaration, asking the Congregation for Bishops to provide an "authoritative judgment of the Holy See". As prefect of the congregation, Re upheld Bruskewitz's action in 2006.
Re, who as prefect of the Congregation of Bishops assisted the pope in deciding the future careers of the clergy, said, "When Monsignor Wielgus was nominated, we did not know anything about his collaboration [with the secret services]." Wielgus resigned his position as Archbishop of Warsaw on 6 January 2007, just one day after being installed in that post in a private ceremony, just before the start of his public installation, because of revelations that he cooperated with the Polish communist secret police decades earlier".
In January 2009, Re published a decree removing the excommunications from the bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X. Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos stated that if anyone in the Vatican should have known about Richard Williamson's negationist views, it was Re, whose congregation oversaw information about bishops and prelates.
In March 2009, after an abortion on a nine-year-old girl raped by her stepfather and pregnant with twins had been performed to save her life, Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho of Olinda and Recife stated that automatic excommunication had been incurred by the girl's mother and the medical team. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva criticized what he called the archbishop's "conservative attitude" and health minister José Gomes Temporão directed his criticism against the Catholic Church's position, describing it as "extreme, radical and inadequate". In a comment to an Italian newspaper, Re deplored what he called an attack on the church in Brazil: "It is a sad case, but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated. Life must always be protected. The attack on the Brazilian church is unjustified." He added that excommunication of those who performed the abortion was just. The National Conference of Bishops of Brazil declared the Archbishop's statement mistaken.
Other positions
Re was a member of various offices of the Curia. In May 2008, Pope Benedict named him a member of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. He was also a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Congregation for the Oriental Churches in addition to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See. He held these memberships until his 80th birthday.
College of Cardinals
Re was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2005 papal conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI. He was identified by numerous commentators before and during the 2005 conclave as a potential successor to John Paul II.
When Pope Benedict XVI resigned on 28 February 2013, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the dean of the College of Cardinals, and Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, the subdean, were over the age of 80 and therefore ineligible to participate in the conclave to elect his successor. Re, as the senior cardinal elector, presided over the conclave that elected Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis. At the new pope's inauguration on 19 March 2013, Re was one of the six cardinals who made a public profession of obedience to the new pope on behalf of the College of Cardinals.
On 10 June 2017, Pope Francis approved Re's election as subdean of the College of Cardinals by the cardinals of the suburbicarian sees (dioceses in the suburbs of Rome). On 18 January 2020, Pope Francis approved his election to a five-year term as dean of the College of Cardinals by the nine Latin Church cardinal bishops, and to a second five-year term as dean on 7 January 2025.
As Dean of the College of Cardinals, Re along with Pope Francis presided over the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI on 5 January 2023. It was the first funeral for a retired pope since Pope Gregory XII, who resigned in 1415 and died two years later. Two years later, on 26 April 2025, Re officiated at the funeral of Pope Francis. He presided over the General Congregations of the College of Cardinals leading to the 2025 papal conclave and presided at the Missa Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice on the morning of 7 May 2025, before the conclave started later that afternoon. He was too old to be an elector and therefore did not preside over the conclave.
At 92, he stepped down as Cardinal Dean on 9 October 2026 after his resignation was accepted by Pope Leo XIV. He was succeeded by Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, concurrently serving as Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization.