 His age disqualified him from participating in the papal conclaves of 1978.When he died in 1986, he was the oldest living cardinal, seven weeks shy of his ninety-sixth birthday.Parente, who is rumored to have assisted Pope Pius XII in preparing the encyclical "Humani generis", wrote in "Filosofia e teologia di Pio XII" (Vaticano 1967) about the magisterium of Pius XII, which he characterized as firm without any bending of eternal truth in favour of popular beliefs in his days.