Pietro Sambi

Pietro Sambi (27 June 1938 – 27 July 2011) was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who served in the diplomatic service of the Holy See from 1969 until his death in 2011. He had the rank of archbishop and the title of nuncio from 1985, fulfilling assignments in Burundi, Indonesia, Cyprus, Israel, Jerusalem and Palestine, and the United States.

Biography Sambi was born in Sogliano al Rubicone (Forlì-Cesena), Italy, on 27 June 1938. He spoke Italian, English, French and Spanish.

He was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of San Marino-Montefeltro on 14 March 1964 and earned degrees in theology and canon law. At the Diocesan Seminary in Pennabilli he was responsible for priestly formation and then became Vice Rector.

He entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1969, serving first at the nunciature in Cameroon.

On 10 October 1985, Pope John Paul II named him pro-nuncio to Burundi and titular archbishop of Bellicastrum. In 2002, faced with problems constructing a statue in front of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, he was assisted by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, and they became friends. When the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem became the center of a stalemate between Palestinian Israeli forces, he negotiated a peaceful resolution. He also criticized Israel's construction of a wall to separate the Palestinian territories from Israel. In March 2003 he warned that Palestinian plans for self-government made no allowance for the practice of religions other than Islam. He also criticized the anti-Semitism found in Palestinian schoolbooks and successfully campaigned for Italy to discontinue support for educational initiatives that used such works. He campaigned for a special status for Jerusalem that would allow it to serve as the center of several major religions. He was installed in early 2006. During Pope Benedict's April 2008 visit to the U.S., Sambi accompanied the Pope and hosted him at the apostolic nunciature, where the Pope held a historic private meeting with five victims of clergy sexual abuse.

As nuncio, beginning in 2007, he was tasked with and had little success in enforcing restrictions that Pope Benedict XVI placed on Cardinal Theodore McCarrick because of reports of inappropriate sexual behavior.

Sambi received an honorary doctorate from Regis University in Denver, Colorado, on 8 May 2011. He was the 2009 Living Stones Solidarity Award of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation for his work in the Middle East.

On 22 July 2011, Sambi underwent lung surgery and developed complications that required the use of assisted ventilation. On 27 July, he died at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, apparently from complications relating to that surgery.