His Eminence, Carlo Cardinal Furno, is the thirteenth Grand Master in the Modern History of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. When Pope Pius IX re-established the Latin Patriarchate in 1847, he decreed that the Latin Patriarch was to be the Grand Master of the Order. This dictum prevailed until 1907, when Pope Saint Pius X, in reconstituting the Order, assumed the Office of the Grand Master for himself and his successors. This pattern continued until 1940 when Pope Pius XII proclaimed that a Cardinal of the Roman Church would be appointed Grand Master, thereby keeping the Seat of the Order in Rome. The first Cardinal to be Grand Master under the new proclamation was Nicola Cardinal Canali. Following Cardinal Canali were: Eugene Cardinal Tisserant(1962), Maximilien Cardinal de Furstenberg (1972), Giuseppe Cardinal Caprio (1988), and today, Carlo Cardinal Furno.

Cardinal Furno was born December 2, 1921 in Bairo Canavese (Turing) Italy. Educated in the schools and seminary of the Diocese of Ivrea, he was ordained June 25, 1944. After several years in a local parish he went to Rome to study at the Lateran University and the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy receiving a Doctorate in Law "in utroque" in 1953. InJuly 1953, he was assigned as Attache, then Secretary to the Nunciature in Columbia and, later, Ecuador. In 1960, he was assigned as Secretary in the Apostolic Delegation of Jerusalem.

In September of 1962, he served with the Secretary of State, the Section of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, responsible for Palestine and the Middle East. He remained in that office for eleven years. Beginning in 1973, Cardinal Furno was nominated by Pope Paul VI to become Apostolic Nuncio of Peru (1973-1978). This followed by further nominations to be Apostolic Nuncio of Lebanon (1978-1982), Brazil (19821992), and Italy (1992-1994).

In the fall of 1994 he was named Cardinal-Deacon of the Church of the Sacred Heart of Christ in Rome and received his Red Hat at the November 26 Consistory of Sacred College of Cardinals. Cardinal Furno also is a member of the Council of the Office of the Vatican Secretary of State, of the Congregations for Oriental Churches, of Bishops, for the Evangelization of Peoples and of the Supervisory Commission of Cardinals for the Vatican Bank.

On December 21, 1995, Pope John Paul II appointed him Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, becoming the worldwide leader of our Order.