- Salvatore Pappalardo
Salvatore Cardinal Pappalardo STD
JUD (23 September 1918 –10 December 2006 ) was an Italian Cardinal of theRoman Catholic Church . He wasArchbishop of Palermo for over 25 years, from 1970 to 1996. He was the first senior clergyman fromSicily to speak out against theMafia , breaking its code ofomertà (vow of silence).Biography
Pappalardo was born in
Villafranca Sicula in Sicily. He was ordained as a priest inRome on12 April 1941 , and was a Counsellor of the VaticanSecretariat of State from 1947 to 1965, serving as privy chamberlain toPope John XXIII from 1951, and then asDomestic Prelate toPope Paul VI from 1961. He was appointed titularArchbishop of Miletus on7 December 1965 , and served asApostolic Pro-Nuncio inIndonesia from 1965 to 1969. He was President of thePontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome from 1969 to 1970. He succeededFrancesco Cardinal Carpino as Archbishop of Palermo on17 October 1970 . He was proclaimedCardinal-Priest of "Santa Maria Odigitria dei Siciliani " byPope Paul VI on5 March 1973 .infobox cardinalstyles
cardinal name=Salvatore Cardinal Pappalardo
dipstyle=His Eminence
offstyle=Your Eminence
See=Palermo|He was considered "papabile " in the conclave in October 1978, after the death ofPope John Paul I : a cover story of "Time" magazine said that he could become the first Sicilian pope in 12 centuries.Pappalardo spoke out against the Mafia from the 1980s. At the funeral of
Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa in 1982, who had been murdered along with his wife in Palermo, he criticised the Italian government for failing to guarantee security in Sicily, implicitly criticising the Mafia but avoiding mentioning the organisation by name. He became more explicit in the early 1990s, after other anti-Mafia lawyers, policemen and priests had been murdered. At the funeral ofGiovanni Falcone in 1992, who was also murdered along with his wife near Palermo, he described the murderers as part of a "synagogue of Satan", leading to criticism from Italian Jews. He later apologised, having meant the word synagogue in its "old sense, as a gathering place". In 1993, at the funeral of murdered priestGiuseppe Puglisi , he called for the people of Sicily to rise up against the Mafia. He was awarded the title of Knight of the Grand Cross of the Italian Republic byItalian President Sandro Pertini .He retired on
4 April 1996 , succeeded bySalvatore De Giorgi . He died in Palermo and was buried in the chapel ofSanta Cristina in theCathedral of Palermo on12 December 2006 .References
* [http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article2073008.ece Obituary] , "
The Independent ,14 December 2006 External links
* [http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bpaps.html Salvatore Cardinal Pappalardo] from catholic-hierarchy.org
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