James Michael Harvey


James Michael Harvey is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. Trained as a diplomat, he served from 1982 to 1998 in the central administration of the Holy See's Secretariat of State. From 1998 to 2012 he managed the pope's household, first for Pope John Paul II and then for Pope Benedict XVI. He was named a bishop in 1998, an archbishop in 2003, and a cardinal in 2012.

Biography

Harvey was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on October 20, 1949. He was ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee on June 29, 1975, by Pope Paul VI in Rome.
Harvey studied at St. Francis Seminary and then resided at the Pontifical North American College while studying for a doctorate in canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University. He also studied diplomacy at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome.
Harvey entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See on March 25, 1980. He served as attaché and then secretary in the apostolic nunciature in the Dominican Republic for two years. On July 10, 1982, he took up a position in the Section for Relations with States of the Secretariat of State. He was named Assessor for General Affairs of that Secretariat on July 22, 1997.
On February 7, 1998, he was named Prefect of the Papal Household by Pope John Paul II, who consecrated him a bishop of the titular see of Memphis on March 19, 1998. As Prefect he oversaw the restoration of the papal audience hall and the papal apartments at Castel Gandolfo. Pope John Paul II elevated him to archbishop on September 29, 2003. Late in 2012, a member of the staff he supervised was convicted of stealing documents and leaking them to the media.
He continued as Prefect of the Papal Household until Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Archpriest of St Paul Outside the Walls, one of the four major basilicas in Rome, on November 23, 2012, and the next day made him Cardinal-Deacon of San Pio V a Villa Carpegna. On December 22, 2012, Harvey was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints for a five-year renewable term. On January 31, 2013, Harvey was appointed a member of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
He was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2013 papal conclave that elected Pope Francis.
Harvey was awarded the title Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by the President of the Republic in 1999. He has also been titled Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic.
Besides his native English, he speaks Italian, German, French, and Spanish.

McCarrick scandal

Harvey was one of the American prelates identified as having received payments from disgraced former cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick. In an interview, the cardinal said that receiving money from other prelates was in no way out of the ordinary, saying that "it never occurred to me that this would be in some way improper" and that "it wasn't about currying favor".