Rafael Merry del Val y Zulueta, OL (10 October 1865 – 26 February 1930) was a Spanish Catholic bishop, Vatican official, and cardinal.

He was greatly responsible to restoring the privileges to Hispanic countries, which honor him for the devotions and traditionalist practices he fostered by personally signing and executing their petitions to the Holy Office.

He was born as Rafael María José Pedro Francisco Borja Domingo Gerardo de la Santísima Trinidad Merry del Val y Zulueta at the Spanish Embassy in London, in the United Kingdom, the second of four sons of a nobleman, Rafael Carlos Merry del Val, secretary to the Spanish legation in London.

[2] In Spain, one Rafael Merry (grandfather of His Eminence) married María Trinidad del Val y Gómez de Sevilla, of Aragonese nobility.

Thus, the couple moved into the house of Josefina's own grandfather, situated on Devonshire Place, 21, where their five children were born: Alfonso, also a diplomat; Rafael, a Roman-Catholic cardinal and Secretary of State to St. Pius X; Pedro, María and Domingo.

Entrusted by Leo XIII with the question of the validity of Anglican orders, he led the Holy See to the negative response in September 1896 with the bull Apostolicae curae, of which he was the main architect.

On the basis of this bull, Leo XIII confirmed the "nullity" of the "ordinations carried out with the Anglican rite", denying the apostolic succession of Bishops of the Church of England.

[4] He was appointed Titular Archbishop of Nicaea on 19 April 1900 and consecrated a bishop by Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro, Cardinal Secretary of State of Pope Leo XIII.

Merry del Val protested and refused even to accept the document, which in the heat of the debate fell onto the floor and was picked back up by Puzyna.

[4] Nevertheless, he avoided an official canonical acknowledgement of Sodalitium Pianum (in France known as "La Sapinière") and kept a certain distance from the extensive activities of Umberto Benigni; in this attitude he was supported by voices from Germany protesting against an "integralist conspiracy".

[8] Among Merry del Val's diplomatic achievements was the signing of a concordat with Serbia barely four days before the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Austrian heir-apparent, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 plunged Europe into the First World War.

Thus at the head of the Church were the two bishops, della Chiesa (now Pope Benedict XV) and Gasparri, who had been leapfrogged by Merry del Val on the eve of the conclave in 1903.

Merry del Val as secretary was responsible for running the daily affairs of the Holy Office, in which capacity he reportedly explained the Papal policy of non possumus to Theodor Herzl and the emerging movement of Zionism, saying that as long as Jews denied Christ's divinity, the Church could not make a declaration in their favor.

[citation needed] After the death of Benedict XV (22 January 1922), Merry del Val was retained by Pius XI in the role of Secretary of the Holy Office, which he held until 26 February 1930, when he died unexpectedly in Vatican City, aged 64, during an operation for appendicitis.