Filippo Camassei

infobox cardinalstyles
cardinal name=Filippo Cardinal Camassei
dipstyle=His Eminence
offstyle=Your Eminence
See=Jerusalem |

Filippo Cardinal Camassei (September 14, 1848—January 18, 1921) was an Italian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1906 to 1919, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1919.

Biography

Filippo Camassei was born in Rome, and studied at the Pontifical Roman Seminary, from where he obtained his doctorates in theology and in canon and civil law. He was ordained to the priesthood on April 12, 1872, and then did pastoral work in Rome. In 1876, Camassei became private secretary to Raffaele Cardinal Monaco La Valetta, the Vicar-General of Rome. He was later made Rector of the Pontifical Pius Seminary in 1874, and of the Pontifical Urbanian Athenaeum "De Propaganda Fide" on December 10, 1889. He was raised to the rank of Domestic Prelate of His Holiness on April 13, 1897.

On March 18, 1904, Camassei was appointed Archbishop of Naxos by Pope Pius X. He received his episcopal consecration on the following April 10 from Girolamo Cardinal Gotti, OCD, with Archbishops Pietro Gasparri and Edmund Stonor serving as co-consecrators, in the chapel of the Pontifical Urbanian Athenaeum "De Propaganda Fide". Camassei was promoted to Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem on December 6, 1906, but was later expelled to Nazareth by the Turks on November 19, 1917.

In Nazareth, he was hosted by the Franciscan friars and continued to supervise the parishes in northern Palestine. The Patriarch returned to Jerusalem after the Anglo-French victory on November 3, 1918. Shortly afterwards, in May 1919, he went to Rome for a period rest and to visit the Vatican. Pope Benedict XV there created him Cardinal Priest of "S. Maria in Aracoeli" in the consistory of December 15 of that same year, ceasing to serve as Patriarch on that same date.

Cardinal Camassei died in Rome, at age 72. He is buried in the sepulchre of "Collegio de S.C. Propaganda Fide" in the Campo di Verano cemetery.

External links

* [http://www.fiu.edu/~mirandas/bios-c.htm#Camassei Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church]
* [http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bcamassei.html Catholic-Hierarchy]