Francesco Coccopalmerio was born in San Giuliano Milanese on 6 March 1938 and raised in Sernio. Ordained a priest for Milan by Archbishop Giovanni Battista Montini — the future Paul VI — on 29 June 1962 (the Holy See biography's date; English Wikipedia gives 28 June), he taught canon law in Northern Italy and at the Gregorian University in Rome for over three decades. Appointed auxiliary bishop of Milan on 8 April 1993 (consecrated 22 May by Cardinal Martini), he joined the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura in 2000.
On 15 February 2007 Benedict XVI raised him to archbishop and President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts — the Church's chief canon lawyer. Benedict directed him to revise Book VI of the Code, the Church's penal law, to make the handling of clergy sex-abuse cases more usable for bishops: “We want to make this delicate material more accessible, more understandable and easier for bishops to apply.” He also served on Francis's 2014 working group that streamlined marriage-nullity processes into Mitis Iudex (2015), and wrote a guided reading of Amoris Laetitia's contested eighth chapter (2017). Benedict XVI created him a cardinal on 18 February 2012, with the deaconry of San Giuseppe dei Falegnami. He retired on 7 April 2018. His motto is Justus ut palma florebit — “the just man shall flourish like the palm.”
Consequential Quotes
We want to make this delicate material more accessible, more understandable and easier for bishops to apply.
If I observe that two people really do love each other, say they practice charity towards the needy… then I can also say that, while their relation remains illicit, in those two people there emerge positive elements.
Major Works & Initiatives
President for Legislative Texts
The Church's chief canon lawyer for eleven years.
The Book VI revision
Led the penal-code rewrite for abuse cases.
The Mitis Iudex group
Streamlined marriage nullity for Francis.
Controversies
The Capozzi affair (2017)
In June 2017 Coccopalmerio's private secretary, Msgr. Luigi Capozzi — whom the cardinal had recommended for appointment as a bishop — was arrested by the Vatican Gendarmerie after a drug-fuelled party in a Vatican apartment owned by Coccopalmerio. Capozzi was ordered into rehabilitation and left the Vatican.
The Inzoli intervention (2018)
Herder Korrespondenz reported in October 2018 that Coccopalmerio had intervened with Pope Francis on behalf of Don Mauro Inzoli, a priest convicted of child abuse, to have him partially reinstated, and that he opposed removing guilty priests from the priesthood, likening it to the “death penalty.”