Rosario Mazzola (19 September 1924 – 24 December 2018) was an Italian

prelate A prelate () is a high-ranking member of the Christian clergy who is an ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin , the past participle of , which means 'carry before', 'be set above or over' or 'pref ...

of the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

who served as bishop of

Cefalù Cefalù (), classically known as Cephaloedium (), is a city and comune in the Italian Metropolitan City of Palermo, located on the Tyrrhenian coast of Sicily about east of the provincial capital and west of Messina. The town, with its populati ...

from 1988 to 2000.

Life

Mazzola studied at the seminary of

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

. He was ordained a priest on 16 July 1950, by

Ernesto Ruffini Ernesto Ruffini (19 January 1888 – 11 June 1967) was an Italian cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Palermo from 1945 until his death, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1946 by Pope Pius XII. Biography Ruffini was ...

, archbishop of Palermo and future cardinal. After he worked as a

parson A parson is an ordained Christian person responsible for a small area, typically a parish. The term was formerly often used for some Anglican clergy and, more rarely, for ordained ministers in some other churches. It is no longer a formal term d ...

, Mazzola was appointed auxiliary bishop of Palermo in June 1982. He was consecrated on 4 September 1982 by Cardinal

Salvatore Pappalardo Salvatore Pappalardo (23 September 1918 – 10 December 2006) was an Italian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who was Archbishop of Palermo for over 25 years, from 1970 to 1996. He was the first senior clergyman from Sicily to speak out ag ...

. On 23 July 1988,

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

appointed him bishop of Cefalù. In March 1995, he said that the Mafia activities in Sicily are a 'disgrace'.I vescovi Siciliani attaccano ' la piovra e' una vergogna'
''La Repubblica'', 22 March 1995 Mazzola became bishop emeritus on 18 March 2000.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mazzola, Rosario 1924 births 2018 deaths 20th-century Italian Roman Catholic bishops Clergy from Palermo Auxiliary bishops