‘Bicycling cardinal’ Matteo Zuppi is new leader of Italy’s Catholic bishops’ conference

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‘Bicycling cardinal’ Matteo Zuppi is new leader of Italy’s Catholic bishops’ conference

10:25 CAT | 25 May 2022

Zuppi, 66, has a reputation as the “bicycling cardinal” for his propensity to cycle around the northern Italian city of Bologna, which he has led as archbishop since 2015. [File photo: Twitter]

Pope Francis has chosen Cardinal Matteo Zuppi as the next president of the Italian bishops’ conference following a vote on Tuesday.

Zuppi, 66, has a reputation as the “bicycling cardinal” for his propensity to cycle around the northern Italian city of Bologna, which he has led as archbishop since 2015.

He also has strong ties to the influential Sant’Egidio Community.

The cardinal was chosen to lead the Episcopal Conference of Italy (CEI) during the group’s 76th general assembly, taking place in Rome on May 23-27.

Pope Francis had previously asked the Italian bishops to adopt a new statute that would allow them to elect the president themselves, but the bishops preferred to leave the choice to the pope, who as Bishop of Rome is also the Primate of Italy.

Under a compromise arrangement, the bishops presented a list of the three candidates with the most votes to the pope, who could then choose between the three or opt for a different candidate.

Zuppi succeeds 80-year-old Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, who led the bishops’ conference for a five-year term beginning in 2017.

Pope Francis made Zuppi a cardinal in 2019. For years, the Rome native has been listed among the “papabili” — possible future popes — but has made light of the speculation.

Before being transferred to Bologna, Zuppi was an auxiliary bishop of Rome for three years. He was responsible for the city’s historic center area, which includes the Trastevere neighbourhood, where the headquarters of the Sant’Egidio Community is located.

Sant’Egidio is a Catholic lay association that aids migrants and promotes ecumenism. It has also helped negotiate reconciliation, including by holding peace talks in countries like Mozambique and South Sudan.

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Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi was born in Rome on 11 October 1955, the fifth of six children. In 1973, a student at the Virgilio high school, he met Andrea Riccardi, the founder of Sant’Egidio, starting to attend the Community and collaborating in the activities at the service of the last promoted by it: from popular schools for marginalized children in the Roman slums, to initiatives for lonely and non self-sufficient elderly, for immigrants and the homeless, the terminally ill and nomads, the disabled and drug addicts, prisoners and victims of conflict; from the ecumenical ones for unity among Christians to those for interreligious dialogue, which took shape in the Assisi meetings.

At the age of 22, after graduating in Literature and Philosophy at La Sapienza University, with a thesis in the history of Christianity, he entered the seminary of the suburbicarian diocese of Palestrina, following the preparation courses for the priesthood at the Pontifical Lateran University, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree. in Theology.

Ordained priest for the clergy of Palestrina on 9 May 1981 by bishop Renato Spallanzani, immediately afterwards Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia was appointed vicar of the parish priest of the Roman basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, succeeding him in 2000 for ten years.

Incardinated in Rome on November 15, 1988, from 1983 to 2012 he was also rector of the church of Santa Croce alla Lungara and a member of the diocesan presbiteral council from 1995 to 2012. In the second five years as parish priest in Trastevere, from 2005 to 2010, he was prefect of the third prefecture of Rome and from 2000 to 2012 general ecclesiastical assistant of the Community of Sant’Egidio, on behalf of which he was mediator in Mozambique in the process leading to peace after over seventeen years of bloody civil war.

In 2010 he was called to lead the parish of Saints Simon and Judas Taddeo in Torre Angela, on the eastern outskirts of the city; and in 2011 he was prefect of the seventeenth prefecture of Rome. Shortly after, on January 31, 2012, Benedict XVI appointed him titular bishop of Villanova and auxiliary of Rome (for the central sector). He receives episcopal ordination on the following 14 April at the hands of the then cardinal vicar Agostino Vallini. On 27 October 2015, Pope Francis appoints him to the metropolitan see of Bologna and on 5 October 2019 he makes him a cardinal with the title of Sant’Egidio. He is a member of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development Service and of the Office of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See.

Source: Catholic News Agency/ ANSA