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.
He entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1969, serving first at the nunciature in Cameroon.[1] He moved to the Apostolic Nunciature in Jerusalem on 19 July 1971, and then to the Apostolic Nunciatures in Cuba in 1974, Algeria in 1978, Nicaragua in 1979, Belgium in 1981, and India in May 1984 with the rank of counselor.[1] In Nicaragua, he was named charge d'affaires just after the leftist Sandinistas under Daniel Ortega came to power and mediated between the Catholic bishops who opposed priests' participation in the government and priests who held prominent government offices in the socialist government.[3]
On 10 October 1985, Pope John Paul II named him pro-nuncio to Burundi and titular archbishop of Bellicastrum.[1] In 1991 he was made pro-nuncio to Indonesia. On 6 June 1998 he was named to several positions concurrently: Nuncio to Israel and to Cyprus and Apostolic Delegate in Jerusalem and Palestine.[4] 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.[5] 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.[citation needed] In March 2003 he warned that Palestinian plans for self-government made no allowance for the practice of religions other than Islam.[6] 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.[7] He campaigned for a special status for Jerusalem that would allow it to serve as the center of several major religions.[2][8] In 2005, he complained that Israel was failing to implement agreements reached with the Holy See over church properties and the treatment of Catholic Arabs in Jerusalem more than a decade earlier.[3]
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, now Archbishop emeritus of Washington, because of reports of inappropriate sexual behavior.[11][12]
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.[8][13]
