Aniello (later changed to "Agnelo") Rossi was born on 4 May 1913 in Joaquim Egidio, in the municipality of
Campinas. Both his parents, Vincenzo Rossi e Vittoria Colombo, were Italian immigrants from the village of
Lagonegro. In 1933 he left his Brazilian home for Rome. There he studied at the Pontifical College
Pio Brasileiro and the
Pontifical Gregorian University. He was ordained a priest on 27 March 1937 in the
Patriarchal Lateran Basilica by
Luigi Traglia, Vicegerent of Rome. Rossi subsequently met duties in Brazil, as secretary to the Bishop of Campinas for one year and as faculty member of the Central Seminary of São Paulo and the faculty of economic science of the
University of Campinas. He was canon of the cathedral chapter of Campinas in 1943–1956. In 1956 Rossi was appointed Bishop of Barra do Piraí within the metropolitan district of
Rio de Janeiro. Paulo de Tarso Campos, bishop of his home diocese Campinas, consecrated him in the same year. Rossi was named Archbishop of
Ribeirão Preto in 1962. Two years later he was transferred to the
Archiepiscopal see of São Paulo, which he held until 1970. In the
consistory of 1965 Rossi was created
Cardinal-Priest by
Pope Paul VI, and he received the title of
Gran Madre di Dio. In 1970 he was appointed Prefect of the
Sacred Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the recently renamed
Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. He participated in the two
conclaves of 1978 (
I,
II). The Congregation for the Evangelization of People's 1978
Faculties and Privileges Granted to Clergy and Catholics Living in Mainland China in These Grave Circumstances was issued during Rossi's tenure. He stepped down as president in 1989 and as Dean in 1993; because he ceased to be Dean, he gave up the title of Bishop of Ostia. He subsequently returned to Brazil. Cardinal Rossi died on 21 May 1995 in
Campinas. ==See also==