Chiesa: He had been brought in to the Vatican assembly in the capacity of personal expert of the archbishop of Bologna [Giacomo Lercaro]. On September 12, 1963, the new pope, Paul VI, communicated his decision to designate four “moderators,” in the persons of cardinals Lercaro, Suenens, Döpfner, and Agagianian, with the task of presiding by turns over the conciliar assembly, on behalf of the pope. It was, as can be seen, a post that each one of the designates should have been able to exercise only individually.
Lercaro instead persuaded his colleagues to accept Fr. Dossetti as their common secretary; and this appointment in practice constituted a sort of “council of the moderators,” which unduly ended up with a function much different from the one foreseen and intended, with an authority much wider than its original mandate. Full article here.
