Alfio Rapisarda (born 3 September 1933) is an Italian prelate of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

who worked in the diplomatic service of the

Holy See The Holy See (, ; ), also called the See of Rome, the Petrine See or the Apostolic See, is the central governing body of the Catholic Church and Vatican City. It encompasses the office of the pope as the Bishops in the Catholic Church, bishop ...

from 1962 to 2008, with the title of apostolic nuncio from 1979.

Biography

Alfio Rapisarda was born on 3 September 1933 in

Zafferana Etnea Zafferana Etnea (; ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Catania in the Italian region Sicily, located about southeast of Palermo and about north of Catania. The municipality of Zafferana Etnea contains the ''frazioni ...

Province of Catania The province of Catania (; ) was a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily, Italy. Its capital was the city of Catania. It had an area of and a total population of about 1,116,917 as of 31 December 2014. Historically known also as ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. He was ordained a priest on 14 July 1957. He earned a doctorate in canon law.

Diplomatic career

He entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1962. He completed the course of studies at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in 1960. His early assignments included stints in Honduras, Brazil, France, Yugoslavia, and Lebanon. On 22 April 1979,

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

appointed him

Titular Archbishop A titular bishop in various churches is a bishop who is not in charge of a diocese. By definition, a bishop is an "overseer" of a community of the faithful, so when a priest is ordained a bishop, the tradition of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox an ...

Cannae Cannae (now , ) is an ancient village of the region of south east Italy. It is a (civil parish) of the (municipality) of . Cannae was formerly a bishopric, and is a Latin Catholic titular see (as of 2022). Geography The commune of Cannae i ...

and

Apostolic Nuncio An apostolic nuncio (; also known as a papal nuncio or simply as a nuncio) is an ecclesiastical diplomat, serving as an envoy or a permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to a state or to an international organization. A nuncio is ...

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

and consecrated him a bishop on 27 May. On 29 January 1985, John Paul named him Apostolic Nuncio to

Zaire Zaire, officially the Republic of Zaire, was the name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1971 to 18 May 1997. Located in Central Africa, it was, by area, the third-largest country in Africa after Sudan and Algeria, and the 11th-la ...

(now the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

), Apostolic Nuncio to

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

on 2 June 1992, and Apostolic Nuncio to Portugal on 12 October 2002. In 2004 Portugal and the Holy See signed a new concordat, replacing an outdated one from 1940.

Pope Benedict XVI Pope BenedictXVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as p ...

accepted his resignation on 8 November 2008.

External links

Catholic Hierarchy - Alfio Rapisarda

Diplomatic Relations of the Holy See

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rapisarda, Alfio 1933 births Living people Bishops appointed by Pope John Paul II Apostolic nuncios to Bolivia Apostolic nuncios to the Democratic Republic of the Congo Apostolic nuncios to Brazil Apostolic nuncios to Portugal People from Zafferana Etnea Religious leaders from the Metropolitan City of Catania 20th-century Italian Roman Catholic titular archbishops 21st-century Italian Roman Catholic titular archbishops

Biography

Diplomatic career

See also

External links

References