Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the strategist who reshaped Italy’s Catholic public voice, dies at 95

A long career of service

Born in Sassuolo on 19 February 1931, Camillo Ruini studied philosophy and theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and was ordained a priest in December 1954. After years of teaching dogmatic theology, he was consecrated auxiliary bishop of Reggio Emilia-Guastalla in 1983. John Paul II brought him to Rome in 1986 as secretary general of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), then named him president of the conference and Vicar General for the Diocese of Rome in 1991, elevando him to cardinal that same year.

Steering the Church in post-DC Italy

Ruini’s tenure at the CEI (1991–2007) coincided with the collapse of the Christian Democrats. Without a party of reference, the bishops under Ruini stepped directly into the public square to defend what they saw as non‑negotiable principles. He turned the conference into a “thinking Church” that sought to orient politics through cultural alliances and public interventions rather than through partisan ties.

Better contested than irrelevant.

The approach was codified as “ruinismo,” a term that entered the Italian encyclopedia Treccani in 2008 to describe his imprint on the conference. His most emblematic victory came with the 2005 referendum on assisted procreation: Ruini urged Catholics to abstain, and the failure to reach a quorum was widely read as a triumph for his strategy.

Bioethics as a frontline

For Ruini, questions of life and death were the sharpest test of contemporary relativism. He described the suspension of nutrition and hydration for Eluana Englaro, a woman in a vegetative state, as an act that inflicts death “in a terrible way” on a defenseless person, calling it murder. In the parallel case of Piergiorgio Welby, who consciously asked to die, Ruini insisted that one cannot simultaneously claim Catholicism and absolute autonomy over one’s own life. Behind these positions lay Benedict XVI’s diagnosis of a “dictatorship of relativism,” which Ruini saw as the central challenge for the Church.

Reactions from political and religious leaders

The death of Cardinal Ruini saddens me deeply. Memories resurface today of my youth when, under his guidance, we young Catholics of Reggio Emilia worked together at the Leonardo Circle. He was our ecclesiastical assistant, a priest interested in uniting different cultures.

Prodi, whom Ruini had married in 1967, later clashed publicly with the cardinal over the 2005 referendum and civil unions, but he stressed that an ancient bond was never broken. Deputy premier Matteo Salvini wrote that Ruini was “a reference point for millions of Italian Catholics” who “dedicated his life to the Church, to dialogue and to the defence of Western values.” Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Ruini’s successor as CEI president, asked for prayers and said the cardinal “served the Church with intelligence, pastoral passion and a deep ecclesial sense.”

Legacy

Ruini remained active well into his old age, receiving bishops and journalists and, when his health allowed, attending papal celebrations in Saint Peter’s. In January 2025 he was hospitalised for a heart attack and later treated for a renal blockage. He decided to spend his final days at home in the diocesan seminary of Rome, assisted by doctors and nurses. His episcopal motto – “Veritas liberabit nos” – encapsulated a style that never shied away from public conflict, leaving a lasting mark on the Italian Church’s relationship with politics and culture.