Cei, Zuppi is the new president. Preferred to Lojudice and Raspanti- Corriere.it

Pope Francis has chosen the successor of Gualtiero Bassetti: the current cardinal of Bologna

VATICAN CITT – Francis has chosen: the cardinal Matteo Zuppi66 years old, archbishop of Bologna, the new president of the Italian bishops. The Pope’s choice arrived shortly more than an hour after the general meeting of the CEI he had sent the result of the morning vote to Santa Marta: Cardinal Zuppi was the most voted candidate of the three to be submitted to the pontiff,
followed by cardinal of Siena Paolo Lojudice and Monsignor Antonino Raspanti, bishop of Acireale. The announcement was made by the cardinal Gualtiero Bassettioutgoing president, to the applause of the audience gathered at the Hilton Rome Airport in Fiumicino. It was the Pope himself who plotted, in the interview with the director CourierLuciano Fontana, the profile of the new president: I try to find one who wants to make a nice change. I prefer him to be a cardinal, to be authoritative.

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The two most authoritative candidates had appeared from the beginning Zuppi and Lojudice, both highly esteemed and street priests as they like Bergoglio, with a long experience among the poorest and the least. Francis was not bound by preferences but in the end, as happened for Bassetti in 2017,
appointed the candidate most voted by the assembly. A few days ago he was joking about his being a favorite: Cardinal Biffi used to say that only crazy people want to become bishops, it could be said that even crazier ones want to become heads of bishops. The bishops must indicate someone they feel that they create unity and can represent them all, helping the Italian Church to continue the journey of the last decades and the synodal journey that began last year. Let’s see what the bishops will decide in the triad that they will indicate to the Pope and what the Pope will decide.

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Il Cardinal Zuppi, Roman, comes from the community of Sant’Egidio: in 1973, a student at the Virgilio classical high school, he met the founder Andrea Riccardi. From that moment he began to engage in the various activities of Sant’Egidio, from popular schools for marginalized children of the Roman slums, to initiatives for lonely and non-self-sufficient elderly, for immigrants and the homeless, the terminally ill and nomads, disabled and drug addicts, prisoners and victims of conflict. Graduated in literature and philosophy at Sapienza University, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in theology at the Pontifical Lateran University. for ten years he was parish priest of the Roman basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere and general ecclesiastical assistant of the community of Sant’Egidio: he was a mediator in Mozambique in the process that led to peace after more than seventeen years of bloody civil war. In 2012, after two years as parish priest in Torre Angela, Benedict XVI appointed him auxiliary bishop of Rome. Francesco chose him as archbishop of Bologna in October 2015 and four years later, on 5 October 2019, he made him a cardinal.

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