Mario Joseph Conti was a Scottish Catholic prelate who served as the Archbishop of the Metropolitan see of Glasgow, Scotland between 2002 and his retirement in 2012.
23 Facts About Mario Conti
1.
2.
Mario Conti died in November 2022 after what was reported as a 'short illness' in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.
3.
Mario Joseph Conti was born on 20 March 1934, in Elgin, Moray, son of Louis Joseph Conti and Josephine Quintilia Conti.
4.
Mario Conti studied for the priesthood at The Scots College, Rome and was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Aberdeen in the Church of San Marcello al Corso, by Archbishop Luigi Traglia on 26 October 1958.
5.
Mario Conti served as parish priest of the most northerly Roman Catholic parish in the British mainland, St Joachim's and St Anne's in Caithness from 1962 to 1977.
6.
Mario Conti was appointed bishop of Aberdeen on 28 February 1977, succeeding Michael Foylan.
7.
Mario Conti was consecrated to that post by Cardinal Gordon Gray on 3 May 1977.
8.
Mario Conti was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity honoris causa by the University of Aberdeen in 1989, being the first Catholic priest to be so honoured since the Reformation.
9.
The Liberal Democrats MP for Gordon, Malcolm Bruce, called on the church to apologise to Sister Marie's victims, but Mario Conti resisted any public apology.
10.
Bishop Mario Conti was translated to the archdiocese of Glasgow on 15 January 2002, succeeding Thomas Winning.
11.
Mario Conti took possession of the archdiocese on 22 February 2002.
12.
Archbishop Mario Conti was a member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
13.
Mario Conti was succeeded as Metropolitan Archbishop of Glasgow in September 2012, with the installation of Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, who was previously the Bishop of Paisley.
14.
Archbishop Mario Conti was President of the Commission for Christian Doctrine and Unity and of the Heritage Commission of the Bishops' Conference of Scotland.
15.
Mario Conti questioned the plans to broadcast a cartoon called Popetown, which satirised the Pope as a childish pensioner and he accused Newsnight Scotland of conducting a "sneering and aggressive" interview on the church's position on shared campus schools.
16.
In 2003, Mario Conti publicly accused the UK Government of paving the way for human cloning.
17.
Mario Conti claimed the first step on the "nightmarish journey" had been the acceptance of test tube babies or in vitro fertilisation in 1978.
18.
Archbishop Mario Conti was a vociferous opponent of extensions to gay rights.
19.
In 2006 Mario Conti publicly voiced his views on the case of nine Scottish firefighters who had been disciplined for refusing to take part in a gay pride event, saying it was wrong to expect them to participate.
20.
Mario Conti mentioned the Catholic Church's traditional teaching, stating that homosexual acts cannot be considered equivalent to marital love between a man and a woman.
21.
Mario Conti warned that the move would create "larger divisions" in society.
22.
In 2009, Mario Conti was vocal in supporting the release by the Scottish government of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, who had been imprisoned for his part in the Lockerbie bombing.
23.
Mario Conti argued that the draft strategy placed too much emphasis on medical treatment and not enough on spiritual or social worries.