1. Matteo Maria Zuppi was born on 11 October 1955 and is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who has been Archbishop of Bologna since 12 December 2015.
22 Facts About Matteo Zuppi
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Matteo Zuppi was previously an auxiliary bishop of Rome from 2012 to 2015.
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Matteo Zuppi has been president of the Episcopal Conference of Italy since May 2022.
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Matteo Zuppi attended the Liceo Virgilio there and then he studied at the seminary in Palestrina and earned his Bachelor of Sacred Theology at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.
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Matteo Zuppi earned a laurea at the Sapienza University of Rome, writing his thesis on the history of Christianity.
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Matteo Zuppi was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Palestrina on 9 May 1981 and in that year was appointed as the parochial vicar of Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere under Vincenzo Paglia, whom he succeeded as pastor of the church, serving from 2000 to 2010.
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Matteo Zuppi was incardinated into the Archdiocese of Rome in 1988.
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Matteo Zuppi worked with the Community of Sant'Egidio, a Catholic lay association devoted to ecumenism and conflict resolution.
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Matteo Zuppi was one of the four mediators of the two-year-long Rome-based peace negotiations that resulted in the Rome General Peace Accords and helped end the civil war in Mozambique in 1992, in recognition of which he was made an honorary citizen of that country.
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Matteo Zuppi traveled to Turkey in 1993 in an attempt to secure the release of two Italian tourists held by Kurdish rebels.
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Matteo Zuppi was ordained a bishop on 14 April 2012 by Cardinal Agostino Vallini, Vicar General of the Diocese of Rome.
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Matteo Zuppi was the auxiliary responsible for the city center, including the Trastevere neighborhood where Sant'Egidio is headquartered.
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Matteo Zuppi established relations with traditionalists and celebrated a Pontifical Mass according to the Tridentine rite.
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Matteo Zuppi was made a member of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development on 21 February 2020, and a member of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See on 18 April 2020.
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On 14 January 2022, at the Basilica of St Mary of the Angels and of the Martyrs in Rome, Matteo Zuppi presided over the state funeral of David Sassoli, his personal friend since adolescence and President of the European Parliament, who died on 11 January due to a multiple myeloma.
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On 24 May 2022, Pope Francis, having been presented by the Conference with three candidates for the post, chose Matteo Zuppi to serve a five-year term as president of the Episcopal Conference of Italy.
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In June 2022 Cardinal Matteo Zuppi was accused of hiding what critics called blessing a gay couple after their civil wedding.
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Cardinal Matteo Zuppi was not present, and had no part in the ceremony.
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In 2023 Pope Francis asked Cardinal Matteo Zuppi to carry out a peace mission to try to help end the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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Matteo Zuppi met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; he did not meet President Vladimir Putin, but he did meet with Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.
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Cardinal Matteo Zuppi visited Moscow in October 2024 to promote humanitarian collaboration amid the ongoing conflict.
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Cardinal Matteo Zuppi met again with Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the funeral of Pope Francis in April 2025 to discuss facilitating the return of Ukrainian children illegally deported from Russia as well as the release of prisoners.