Mario Francesco Pompedda

Carlo Mario Francesco Pompedda (18 April 1929 – 18 October 2006) was an Italian cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and the Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura for the Roman Curia. He spent nearly fifty years in a variety of posts within the Catholic Church's ecclesiastical court system, from 1955 to 2004.

Biography Pompedda was born in Ozieri in Sardinia. He studied at seminaries in Sassari and Cuglieri and was ordained a priest in Rome on 23 December 1951. He obtained a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University, and a doctorate in utroque iure (in civil law and canon law) from the Pontifical Lateran University. He became an officer of the Roman Rota, the general appellate court of the Catholic Church, in 1955, serving as a defender of the bond. He joined the tribunal as an auditor in 1969 and served in that capacity until he became Dean of the Roman Rota in 1993. He was appointed Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest tribunal in the church, in 1999. He resigned this position, as is customary, upon reaching the age of 75, on 18 April 2004, and his resignation was accepted on 27 May 2004.

Pompedda was appointed titular Archbishop of Bisarcio on 29 November 1997 and consecrated on 6 February 1998. He was proclaimed a Cardinal-Deacon of Santissima Annunciazione della Beata Vergine Maria a Via Ardeatina by Pope John Paul II on 21 February 2001. He was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2005 papal conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI. It was suspected that he may have been the source of information about the conclave published in the Italian journalist Lucio Brunelli in the journal Limes in September 2005; many also suspected that the information was false. Cardinal Pompedda also served as president of the appellate court of Vatican City and, from 1999, as president of the Court of Cassation of Vatican City. He is credited with drafting Universi Dominici Gregis.