Although we may not acknowledge it, the London-born Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val's decisions still have a role on our daily lives. Yes, Merry del Val was an aristocrat brought up in the highest of high society who had all the privileges of the English upperclass and he even enjoyed some on par with the Royal Family. And was born long ago in 1865, and he died of appendicitis in 1930. But he was the boss of the Vatican Holy Office (or CDF) for 16 years from 1914 to 1930, during this span of time Our Lady appeared at Fatima and Merry del Val oversaw all the reports from the farming community in Portugal who were hosts to visits from Our Lady. He had a very important role in molding the faithful's perception of Fatima, and the mere fact that Fatima was approved as being a genuine Marian apparition has a lot to do with his efforts. Thus when we revere Our Lady of Fatima, we are resting on the intense scrutiny that Merry del Val and his officials did in verifying the accounts of the three shepherds who held that the Queen of Heaven was entrusting them with secrets.
I argue that Cardinal Merry del Val was at his best when Pope Benedict XV was the Pope - the Pope with the face of long smile lines - who ruled during Our Lady's apparitions at Fatima. The Pope who came after him, however, the granite faced Pius XI led Merry del Val in a way that has compromised both prelates' legacies. Under Pius XI's authority, Merry del Val took dastardly measures against Padre Pio. In May 1923, barely four months after Pius became Pope, Merry del Val issued a set of orders that limited Padre Pio's ministry. One such measure was that Pio was never to write to his beloved spiritual father, Padre Benedetto ever again - this broke Pio's heart. Another was that Pio was to be moved to Northern Italy. This caused absolute pandemonium in San Giovanni Rotondo, the blessed town where Pio lived, and the locals were so beside themselves with terror that Pio would leave them, that Pio himself nearly died when a crazed boy tried to shoot him saying, "Dead or alive you are staying with us." Merry del Val ought never have been so against Pio that he sought to remove him from the Southern Italians.
But he did so with the blessing of Pius XI. Pius XI was the Pope who was the most poisoned against Padre Pio. When I write "poisoned", I mean to assert that someone poisoned Pius XI against Padre Pio. That someone was Agostino Gemelli. An owl-faced physician and psychologist who was Pope Pius XI's best friend, and Pio's greatest mortal enemy. In his youth, Gemelli had been an avowed Communist and had been arrested for extreme Marxist crimes against the Church in Milan. Still in Milan Gemelli wormed his way into the affections of Pius XI, and dazzled him with his medical acumen. Then in Rome Gemelli poisoned Pius against Pio, and Pius poisoned Merry del Val against Pio.
And for a long time I was poisoned against Merry del Val because I judged him purely on the orders he gave which led to Pio being treated as a criminal. But then in my research for my book on Padre Pio, I committed to reading old Italian books that have details of police reports of arrests made on Gemelli for his violent Marxism, and these books also document Gemelli's control over Pius XI. I needed to find out the motives of Pio's arch-enemy who told many well-documented lies about Pio, including that he had examined Pio when no such examination ever took place.
I consider that had Pius XI had a better confidante, instead of the lying Gemelli who I hold was a Marxist infiltrator, he would have been more positively disposed towards Pio, and thus Merry del Val would have been fairer to Pio.
I am no longer as sharp a critic of Merry del Val as I once was, not just because of my research into the dynamics of the Vatican when Pius XI was Pope, but because I have prayed the prayers composed by Merry del Val, and find in them a true desire for sanctity and a beautiful humility.
In the prayer below, Merry del Val beseeches Our Lord for His light so that he might destroy in himself the natural man who he blames as "the chief source" of his misery and "the barrier" to the Lord's love. I have a little love for Merry del Val on account of his prayers, and I'm going to read Rev. Jerome dal Gal's book on him. Cardinal Merry del Val, pray for us!
Prayer composed by Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val
Change my heart, O Jesus, Thou Who didst empty Thyself for love of me! Make known to my spirit how excellent were Thy sacred humiliations. Let me begin this day, illumined by Thy divine light, to do away with that portion of the natural man, that still lives undiminished in me. This is the chief source of my misery, this the barrier that I constantly oppose to Thy love.
There is also the baby onesie for anyone who would like to clad their cherubic babe in the image of Cardinal Merry del Val. A mother who has high hopes that her child will rise in the echelons of the Church may wish to do a bit of predictive programming in the babe's brain, or y'know instill the little one with dreams of being a bald cardinal. Your average bald baby will see the pilgarlic Merry del Val, and think, "Aw he looks just like me!"
