VATICAN CITY (AP) – Cardinal Opilio Rossi, a former Vatican diplomat who served in Berlin during World War II, died Monday, Vatican Radio said. He was 93.
Rossi was born in New York and took Italian citizenship while attending a seminary in Italy. He also served in the Vatican's missions in Ecuador, Chile and Austria.
His death leaves the number
of cardinals at 192 – 129 of them under the age of 80 and eligible to
vote in an election for a new pope.
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13-February-2004
-- Vatican Information Service
CARDINAL ROSSI: A PASTOR AND DIPLOMAT, NOURISHED BY FAITH
VATICAN CITY, FEB 13, 2004 (VIS) – Pope John Paul delivered the homily at the funeral this morning in St. Peter’s Basilica of Cardinal Opilio Rossi, 93, who died four days ago in Rome after a life dedicated to service in the Roman Curia and in the Vatican’s diplomatic corps.The Pope underscored that it was “faith which animated the long and fecund priestly ministry of Cardinal Opilio Rossi....
“During the dramatic moments of World War II,” he continued, “Fr. Opilio Rossi, then an auditor in the pontifical representative in Berlin, gave everything he had, along with the late apostolic nuncio, Msgr. Orsenigo, to assist many suffering brothers and sisters, giving them courage and nourishing in them faith and Christian hope. It was an enriching experience of humanity and solidarity towards the weakest.
He then sought, over the course of his life, to transmit this experience to new generations. He was in fact convinced that young people must draw from the history of the 20th century an important lesson: that is, that hatred, disdain for others, violence, and exasperated nationalism bring forth only tears and blood.”
John Paul II then recalled that Cardinal Rossi returned to the Roman Curia where he became the first president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and that he himself called the cardinal to preside over the Permanent Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses.“Wherever he undertook his pastoral and diplomatic ministry,” concluded the Pope, Cardinal Rossi “knew how to become close to everyone.”
EWTN
News Story
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=43843
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Cardinal
Opilio Rossi's circumstances are unusual in that he was born a United
States citizen in New York City on May 14, 1910 to Italian immigrant parents.
This enabled him to learn fluent Italian as well as English which he used
well when he enrolled in the minor seminary in Italy and became an Italian
citizen then completed university studies at Collegio Alberoni in Piacenza.
From there it was on to Rome where he earned a degree in Canon Law. On March 11, 1933 he was ordained for the Diocese of Piacenza-Bobbio and assigned to various additional studies in Rome, completing his work at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in 1937 and then summoned to work in the Office of the Secretariat of State during the pontificate of Pope Pius XI.
A year later he was dispatched to Brussels as Secretary to the Nunciature there and from 1940 to 1945 had the sensitive, scary and unenviable task of walking a tightrope in Berlin for the diplomatic corps.
He played a key role in the reconstruction era in Germany and the Netherlands after the war and in 1953 Pope Pius XII named him Nuncio to Ecuador after he had been made Titular Archbishop of Ancyra on November 21, 1953 and consecrated on December 27th of the same year.
Six years later he was appointed Nuncio to Chile by Pope John XXIII and in 1961 transfered to Vienna in Austria in the same post.
He remained in Austria for fifteen years until May 24, 1976 when Pope Paul VI elevated him to the Sacred Conclave at the age of 66 and made a cardinal deacon during the Pope's Consistory that year, receiving the titular church of St. Lawrence in Lucina and named President of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses where he remained until his seventy-sixth birthday in 1990 when he requested to step down.
A year after he had become President of the above committee, he was also named President of the Commission for the Sanctuaries of Pompeii, Loreto, and Bari in Italy. He served here from 1984 until 1993 when, at the age of 83, he resigned all duties to completely retire, now, at the age of 89, residing at Via della Scrofa, 70 00186 in Rome. On June 22, 1987 the Holy Father transferred Cardinal Rossi from cardinal deacon to cardinal priest.
October
11, 1999 COLLEGE OF CARDINALS COLLECTION: (oct11col.htm)
http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/archives/
1999Oct/193oct11,vol.10,no.193txt/oct11col.htm