- Antonio Innocenti
infobox cardinalstyles
cardinal name=Antonio Cardinal Innocenti
dipstyle=His Eminence
offstyle=Your Eminence
relstyle=Cardinal
See=Aeclanum (titular see )
deathstyle=not applicable |Antonio Cardinal Innocenti (
August 23 ,1915 –September 6 ,2008 ) was a cardinal who was a mainstay of theRoman Curia and the Vatican diplomatic service for many years. He was born inPoppi ,Italy .Ordained in 1938 in
Florence , Innocenti worked as a pastor in northern Italy for the following decade. His work helpingJews led to him narrowly escaping death from a firing squad; he was released at the last minute. He was then called byPope Pius XII to Rome and settled down to a career in the Curia. He served for most of the 1950s and 1960s in the papal nunciature inSwitzerland , where, as he saw it, the major problems were "an opulent society, religious assistance to immigrants and relations with Christian of other denominations".On December 15, 1967, Innocenti was elevated by
Pope Paul VI to the role oftitular archbishop of Eclano and at exactly the same time appointed nuncio toParaguay . He served as nuncio to Paraguay whilst holding a number of titular sees until 1973, when he was elevated further to the role of secretary of the Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments (now theCongregation for Divine Worship ) until 1980, when Innocenti became nuncio toSpain .In 1985,
Pope John Paul II rewarded the experienced prelate with elevation to cardinal and one year later Innocenti became prefect of theCongregation for the Clergy , a post he was to hold until he passed the mandatory retirement age of seventy-five in 1991. During Innocenti's time as prefect, the Curia was extremely busy dealing with what was perceived as dangerous dissent from papal teaching, and Innocenti was heavily involved with many lay movements designed to restore orthodoxy among the Church's members.After stepping down from his post as Prefect in 1991, Innocenti gradually faded into retirement. When he turned eighty in 1995, he lost his right to vote in a
papal conclave , and by 1999 he had completely retired to Piazza della Citta Leonina.External links
* [http://www.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios-i.htm#Innocenti Biography]
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