The Italian Episcopal Conference () or CEI is the

episcopal conference An episcopal conference, often also called a bishops’ conference or conference of bishops, is an official assembly of the bishops of the Catholic Church in a given territory. Episcopal conferences have long existed as informal entities. The fir ...

of the Italian

bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

s 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 ...

. The conference was founded in 1971 and carries out various tasks, including setting the national liturgical norms for the

Mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

. Episcopal conferences receive their authority under universal law or particular mandates. Cardinal Matteo Zuppi was appointed its president by

Pope Francis Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 13 March 2013 until Death and funeral of Pope Francis, his death in 2025. He was the fi ...

in 2022. In 1986,

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 ...

suppressed 101 Italian dioceses. As of 2024 there are 226 dioceses in all. As of 2024 Italy has a total of 41 dioceses united in persona episcopi, or “in the person of the bishop.” It is the only episcopal conference for which the

pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

appoints the president and secretary-general. In almost all other conferences the president is elected, while the secretary-general is elected in all others. At the beginning of his papacy in 2013, Pope Francis considered having the CEI membership elect its own president and secretary-general, a proposal that was once considered and abandoned by

. In 2017, adopting a new procedure, the CEI members elected three candidates for president and submitted them to the pope, who was free to choose one of them or someone else. Pope Francis repeatedly urged the CEI bishops to organize a national synod as discussed at their conference in Florence in 2015, first through surrogates and then himself inviting them to undertake a synod, eventually telling them in January 2021 that it was their duty and the time had come. The conference leadership submitted their synod proposal to him a month later. A

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

version of the Bible in Italian is published by the CEI. The conference established Italy's first national day of prayer for survivors of clerical sexual abuse on 18 November 2021.

Leadership

Presidents

* Ildefonso Schuster (1952–1953) *

Adeodato Giovanni Piazza Adeodato Giovanni Piazza, OCD (30 September 1884 – 30 November 1957) was an Italian friar of the Discalced Carmelite Order, who became a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, and Patriarch of Venice, as well as a member of the Roman Curia i ...

(1953–1954) * Maurilio Fossati (1954–1958) * Giuseppe Siri (1959–1965) *A temporary committee of cardinals with collective presidency:

Giovanni Colombo Giovanni Umberto Colombo (6 December 1902 – 20 May 1992) was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Milan from 1963 to 1979 and was elevated to the rank of cardinal in 1965. Biography Early life and pri ...

, Ermenegildo Florit, Giovanni Urbani (1965–1966) *Giovanni Urbani (1966–1969) * Antonio Poma (1969–1979) * Anastasio Ballestrero (1979–1985) * Ugo Poletti (1985–1991) * Camillo Ruini (1991–2007) *

Angelo Bagnasco Angelo Bagnasco (; born 14 January 1943) is an Italian Cardinal (Catholicism), Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Genoa, Archbishop of Genoa from 2006 to 2020. He was President of the Conferenza Episcopale It ...

(2007–2017) * Gualtiero Bassetti (2017–2022) * Matteo Zuppi (24 May 2022 – present)

Secretaries-General

The official that deals with the day-to-day affairs of the Conference is the secretary-general. * Camillo Ruini (28 June 1986 – 7 March 1991) * Dionigi Tettamanzi (14 March 1991 – 20 April 1995) * Ennio Antonelli (26 May 1995 – 5 April 2001) * Giuseppe Betori (5 April 2001 – 8 September 2008) * Mariano Crociata (25 September 2008 – 19 November 2013) * Nunzio Galantino (30 December 2013 – 26 June 2018) * Stefano Russo (28 September 2018 – 5 July 2022) * Giuseppe Baturi (5 July 2022 – present)

Notes

References

External links

Official site
{{Authority control

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 ...