Paolo Dezza

Paolo Dezza, S.J. (13 December 1901 in Parma, Italy – 17 December 1999 in Rome) was a Roman Catholic Jesuit cardinal who led the Pontifical Gregorian University during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII, whom he aided in the preparation of the dogma of the Assumption of Mary. He was confessor to Pope Paul VI and Paul's successor, Pope John Paul I, and was a teacher of Pope John Paul I's successor, Pope John Paul II.

In 1981, after Superior General Pedro Arrupe suffered a debilitating stroke, Pope John Paul II appointed Dezza and an assistant, Father (later Archbishop) Giuseppe Pittau, S.J., to head the Jesuit order. In 1991, Dezza was named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II out of gratitude for his services to the Church and for his work as a theologian and university president.

Aged seventeen, Dezza entered the Jesuit order on 2 December 1918. He studied both in Madrid, Spain Naples, Italy and Innsbruck, Austria. On 25 March 1928, he was ordained priest. A brilliant scholar, he was named professor of philosophy at the Gregorian University, but had to spend several years in Switzerland because of health complications. In 1935, he was named Provincial for the region Venice and Milan, and in 1941, he was named head of the Gregorian University With Robert Leiber, Augustin Bea, Otto Faller, G. Hentrich and R. G. de Moos he assisted in the preparation of the dogma of the Assumption of Mary.

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