The new Vatican No. 2 was a no-show at the ceremony to take over the
reins of the Vatican administration, after being hospitalized for urgent
surgery.
Pope Francis told the assembled guests at Tuesday's handover ceremony
that Archbishop Pietro Parolin had had to undergo minor but urgent
surgery while he was visiting his family in Italy's Veneto region.
The
Vatican says it would be several weeks before he actually starts
working.
Parolin missed out on the ceremonial changing of the guard
from the retiring Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone,
who was blamed for many of the gaffes and problems of the papacy of
Benedict XVI.
Francis nevertheless welcomed Parolin "in absentia" as he thanked Bertone for his service.
The changing of the guard is underway at the Vatican.
Pope Francis bid farewell Tuesday to the Vatican's No. 2, Cardinal
Tarcisio Bertone, who was blamed for many of the gaffes and problems of
the papacy of Benedict XVI.
And at a ceremony inside the Apostolic
Palace, Francis welcomed his new chief collaborator, Archbishop Pietro
Parolin, a career diplomat who was sent from the Holy See to Venezuela
during Bertone's tenure.
The handover represented a tangible sign of change for the Vatican
following Bertone's scandal-marred term, which climaxed with the 2012
theft of Benedict's papers by his butler.
But many other problems of
Benedict's reign — from his rehabilitation of a Holocaust-denying bishop
to the Vatican's response to the 2010 sex abuse scandal — have been
pinned on Bertone.