In 1987, when Pope John Paul II visited Chile, Sodano arranged for him to meet in the nunciature the leaders of the opposition to the Pinochet government. The following year, the Pope appointed Sodano Secretary for Relations with States, a post corresponding to that of a foreign minister, and on 1 December 1990 named him Pro-Secretary of State, creating him Cardinal-Priest of S. Maria Nuova (thus making him Secretary of State) on 28 June 1991. On 29 June 1991, Sodano became Cardinal Secretary of State, succeeding Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, who had retired on 1 December 1990. On 10 January 1994, Pope John Paul II named Sodano Cardinal Bishop of the suburbicarian see of Albano. Sodano retained his relationship to the church of Santa Maria Nuova no longer as titular but "in commendam", that is, in trust or in his custody. On 27 December 1998, he wrote, at the request of the democratic government of Chile, an official letter to the British Prime Minister Tony Blair stating that "the Chilean Government considers it an offence to its territorial sovereignty as a nation the fact of being deprived of the power to judge its own citizens" through the detention of Pinochet in Britain. When in 2002 Sodano turned 75, John Paul invited him to stay on as Secretary of State, though this is the customary retirement age for heads of major Vatican departments. On 30 November 2002, exactly twenty-five years after he was first appointed a bishop, he was elected vice-dean of the College of Cardinals, succeeding Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Dean. In 2003 Sodano drew attention by quite positively commemorating the 500th anniversary of the election the Renaissance Pope Julius II. When Pope John Paul II died on 2 April 2005, Sodano, who participated in the 2005 papal conclave, was not generally seen as one of the "papabili", the cardinals likely to become the next pope. This was largely due to his advanced age (although he was seven months younger than the cardinal who was eventually elected, Joseph Ratzinger, who took the name Benedict XVI), and his lack of experience outside the Roman Curia. During the conclave, because Cardinal Ratzinger, the pope-elect, was the Dean, Sodano as the Sub-Dean exercised the duties normally allotted to the Dean in asking the pope-elect if he accepted his election and by what name he would be called. Also as the Sub-Dean and the most senior Cardinal-Bishop, Cardinal Sodano discharged the duties normally allotted to the Dean at the new pope's papal inauguration.