Kevin Joseph Farrell | |
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| Prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church | |
 Farrell in 2021 | |
| Church | Catholic Church |
| Appointed | 15 August 2016 |
| Installed | 14 February 2019 (as Camerlengo) |
| Predecessor | Jean-Louis Tauran (Camerlengo) |
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| Previous posts |
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| Orders | |
| Ordination | 24 December 1978 by Eduardo Francisco Pironio |
| Consecration | 11 February 2002 by Theodore Edgar McCarrick |
| Created cardinal | 19 November 2016 byPope Francis |
| Rank | Cardinal deacon |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Kevin Joseph Farrell (1947-09-02)2 September 1947 (age 78) Dublin, Ireland |
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Ordination history of Kevin Farrell | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Styles of Kevin Joseph Farrell | |
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| Reference style | His Eminence |
| Spoken style | Your Eminence |
| Religious style | Cardinal |
| Informal style | Cardinal |
Kevin Joseph Farrell (born 2 September 1947) is anIrish-bornAmerican Catholic prelate who has served as the prefect of theDicastery for the Laity, Family and Life since 2016,Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church since 2019, and president of theSupreme Court of Vatican City since 2024. He served as the regent of Vatican City after the death ofPope Francis on 21 April 2025, and held these interim duties untilLeo XIV was elected as pope on 8 May.
After his ordination in 1978, Farrell served as a chaplain and university teacher for several years in Mexico and worked in the United States from 1984 to 2016. He was an auxiliary bishop of theArchdiocese of Washington from 2002 to 2007 andBishop of Dallas from 2007 to 2017. He was made acardinal in 2016.
Farrell was born on 2 September 1947, in Dublin, Ireland.[2] He is the second of four sons. His older brother isBrian Farrell, who was appointed secretary of thePontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity in theRoman Curia in 2002.
He entered the novitiate of theLegionaries of Christ in Ireland in 1966. He then studied at thePontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he earned aMaster of Philosophy degree andLicentiate in Theology. He also attended thePontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, receiving a Master of Theology degree in dogmatic theology (1976) and aLicentiate of Sacred Theology in pastoral theology (1977).[3] He also holds aMaster of Business Administration degree from theUniversity of Notre Dame.[4] Notre Dame also granted Farrell an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 2017.[5]
Farrell wasordained to the priesthood for theLegionaries of Christ by CardinalEduardo Pironio in Rome at Our Lady of Guadalupe Basilica on 24 December 1978.[6] After his ordination, Farrell served as a chaplain at theUniversity of Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico, where he also conducted seminars inbioethics and social ethics.
In the early 1980s, Farrell left the Legionaries to beincardinated in theArchdiocese of Washington in the United States. In 1984, Farrell was assigned as anassociate pastor at St. Peter's Parish inOlney, Maryland. He also served at St. Bartholomew Parish inBethesda, Maryland, and at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Washington, D.C. In 1985, Farrell was appointed director of the archdiocesan Spanish Catholic Center.[7]
Farrell became acting director ofCatholic Charities in the archdiocese in 1988, and served as secretary for financial affairs from 1989 to 2001. The Vatican raised him to the rank ofmonsignor in 1995. In 2001, Farrell was namedvicar general for the archdiocese andpastor of Annunciation Parish in Washington.[7]
On 28 December 2001,Pope John Paul II appointed Farrell as anauxiliary bishop of Washington (DC) with the titular see ofRusuccuru. He was consecrated on 11 February 2002, at theBasilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington by former CardinalTheodore McCarrick. His co-consecrators were CardinalJames Hickey and BishopLeonard Olivier.[6]
Farrell served until 2007 as Washington'smoderator of the curia and chiefvicar general.[8]
Farrell was appointed bishop of Dallas byPope Benedict XVI on 6 March 2007, replacing BishopCharles Grahmann. Farrell was installed on 1 May 2007.[9]
Within theUnited States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Farrell was a consultant to the Committee on Migration, which oversaw the Migration and Refugee Services department.[10]
Farrell was the 2009 chair of the USCCB Committee on National Collections. His brotherBrian Farrell is the secretary of thePontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Kevin Farrell commented on his brother in 2015: "I'm younger, but I became bishop first, 12 months earlier. And we still have a little sibling rivalry."[11]
On 17 August 2016,Pope Francis appointed Farrell prefect of the newly establishedDicastery for Laity, Family and Life in Rome.[12]
On 9 October 2016, Pope Francis announced he would raise Farrell to the rank ofcardinal in aconsistory on 19 November 2016.[13] He was created a cardinal-deacon on that day and assigned toSan Giuliano Martire Parish in Rome.[14] On 10 June 2017, Pope Francis named Farrell a member of theAdministration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See,[15] and on 23 December 2017, a member of thePontifical Commission for Vatican City State.[16] In July 2018, theUniversity of Dallas named an administration building after Farrell, a former chancellor.[17][18] On 14 February 2019, Pope Francis named Farrell ascamerlengo of the Holy Roman Church.[19][8]
In June 2019, Farrell admitted receiving a $29,000 gift from BishopMichael J. Bransfield to refurbish his Rome apartment. A 2018apostolic visitation to theDiocese of Wheeling-Charleston in West Virginia revealed that he had been using diocesan funds for these gifts and his own personal spending. Farrell returned the $29,000 to the diocese; Bransfield was removed from office in July 2019.[20]
On 20 April 2020, Farrell persuaded Pope Francis to postpone both the2021 World Meeting of Families and2022 World Youth Day to June 2022 and August 2023 respectively due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.[21][22][23]
On 29 September 2020, Pope Francis appointed Farrell as president of the Commission for Confidential Matters, a new office in theRoman Curia.[24] According to the church's apostolic constitution,Praedicate Evangelium, the commission is responsible "1. to authorize any legal, economic or financial act that for the greater good of the Church or of persons must be kept confidential and removed from the examination and supervision of the competent entities; 2. to monitor contracts of the Holy See which by law demand confidentiality and to exercise vigilance over them."[25]
On 7 June 2022, Pope Francis appointed Farrell as chair of the Pontifical Committee for Investments.[26] According toPraedicate Evangelium, the committee is responsible for "guaranteeing the ethical nature of the Holy See’s equity investments in accordance with the Church’s social doctrine and, at the same time, monitoring their profitability, propriety, and degree of risk.[27]
On 1 January 2024, Farrell was appointed as President of the Supreme Court of Vatican City.[28]
On 20 May 2024, Pope Francis appointed Farrell as special envoy to theLIII International Eucharistic Congress, held from 8 to 15 September inQuito, Ecuador.[29] In November, Francis appointed Farrell assole director for the Holy See'spension fund, covering theRoman curia and former Vatican City employees.[30]
On 21 April 2025, Farrell announced thedeath of Pope Francis in a video statement on the Vatican's TV channel.[31] The Vatican announced that Farrell would preside over therite of ascertainment of death for Francis, to take place on the same evening.[32] He served as the acting sovereign of Vatican City between the death of Pope Francis on 21 April 2025 and the election ofPope Leo XIV on 8 May 2025.[33]
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After McCarrick waslaicized in 2018 for credible allegations of sexual abuse against a minor, further reports of accusations and legal settlements emerged, dating back years. These revelations led to public questions about whether bishops and clerics closely associated with McCarrick, including Farrell, had been aware of these accusations and settlements.
McCarrick had asked the Vatican to appoint Farrell as auxiliary bishop in Washington. Over the next six years, Farrell served as vicar general there. During this time, he shared a four-bedroom apartment with McCarrick and two priest secretaries.[34][35][36][37]
According to Farrell's website when he was bishop of Dallas, the lion rampant on his coat of arms "honors" McCarrick and the yellow and red coloring at the top right of his coat of arms is also derived from that of McCarrick.[38]
Many newspapers and columnists have questioned whether Farrell and the other bishops who served under McCarrick were aware of the molestation and abuse and decided to do nothing about it.[39][40] JournalistMichael Sean Winters termed McCarrick as Farrell's "mentor in the episcopacy".[41]
In September 2015, the Vatican announced that theWorld Meeting of Families (WMOF) would be held inPhoenix Park in Dublin, Ireland, in 2018.[42] In August 2016, Francis appointed Farrell as head of theDicastery for the Laity, Family and Life. As a result, Farrell took charge of the 2018 WMOF. Farrell said that Francis' visit to Ireland would be "inspirational" and "counter negativity" towards the Irish church.[43] On 18 August 2018, former Irish PresidentMary McAleese, a critic of the WMOF, said that meeting organizers had not invited her or her family to any of the WMOF events, saying:
It's always been essentially a right wing rally... and it was designed for that purpose, to rally people to get them motivated to fight against the tide of same sex marriage, rights for gays, abortion rights, contraceptive rights."[44]
On 16 August 2018, CardinalSean O'Malley, scheduled to lead a "pioneering session on child safeguarding", withdrew from the WMOF.[45] On 18 August CardinalDonald Wuerl, due to address the conference, also pulled out.[46] Although organizers claimed to have sold over 500,000 tickets to WMOF, theOffice of Public Works in Ireland confirmed that the attendance was only 152,000.[47][48]
In February 2018, Farrell banned former Irish presidentMary McAleese, a supporter of women's ordination andsame-sex marriage, from speaking at a Vatican conference on Women in the Catholic Church.[49]
On 18 March 2021, Farrell defended a ban by Francis on the blessing ofsame-sex unions by priests. Farrell stated that a priestly blessing was a sacramental action related to marriage, which could only be between a man and a woman.[50]
Farrell is a supporter ofgun control initiatives and opposes "deference to thegun lobby" by theUnited States Congress.[51]
Cardinal Farrell (...) is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Ireland and served as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Washington from 2002 to 2007 and bishop of Dallas from 2007 to 2016.
Media related toKevin Joseph Farrell at Wikimedia Commons| Catholic Church titles | ||
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| Preceded by | Titular Bishop ofRusuccuru 28 December 2001 – 6 March 2007 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Bishop of Dallas 6 March 2007 – 15 August 2016 | Succeeded by |
| New title | Prefect of theDicastery for Laity, Family and Life 15 August 2016 – | Incumbent |
| Preceded by | Cardinal-Deacon ofSan Giuliano Martire 19 November 2016 – | |
| Preceded by | Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church 14 February 2019 – | |
| Preceded by | President of the Court of Cassation of Vatican City 1 January 2024 – | |
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