Local Bishop Celebrates 50th Anniversary After Life-long Service to the Poor

From West Hartford to Waterbury, New Haven and beyond, Bishop Peter A. Rosazza, Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus of Hartford, has dedicated his service as a priest to the causes of social justice. On June 24, he will celebrate a Mass that will observe his 50^th anniversary of priesthood at the Cathedral of St. Joseph at 6 p.m. Archbishop Henry J. Mansell of Hartford will preside.

Born in New Haven in 1935, Bishop Rosazza has devoted his life to improving the lives of the poor and disenfranchised in Connecticut in vast and numerous ways. He was a member of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee for Social Development and World Peace, and a liaison with Brazilian Catholics for the Committee on Migration and Refugees. He was also one of the founders of the Naugatuck Valley Project, a coalition of churches and labor union locals, as well as ECCO (Elm City Congregations Organized), a community organization of 18 churches in the New Haven area.  For 26 years, he served as a bishop advisor to the National Catholic Student Coalition, and it is not surprising that he was one of five bishops who drafted the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Pastoral Letter on the U.S. Economy and Catholic Social Teaching.  Helping others has always been a priority.

“It is part of me, a gift from God, a call from the Lord that I can’t say “no” to. Part of it came from my studies in France where I learned about Catholic social teaching and reaching out to poor people.”

Ordained a priest in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1961, he returned to Connecticut where he served as assistant pastor at St. Timothy in West Hartford, and was later appointed by Archbishop Henry J. O’Brien to the faculty of St. Thomas Seminary in Bloomfield where he taught French, Spanish and Italian. In 1972, he became co-pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Hartford's north end, the mother church of Hartford's Hispanic Catholic community, and six years later in 1978, Pope Paul VI named Rosazza auxiliary bishop to the Archbishop of Hartford. 

Although retired in 2010, Bishop Rosazza is still very active. He celebrates Confirmation Masses, and assists at parishes on the weekends. He also hosts, Bishop’s Corner, a weekly pastoral program where he shares his views on various subjects dealing with Catholic and Christian faith, ranging from social and spiritual concerns, to the history of the Catholic Church. Bishop's Corner is broadcast on Sundays on WAVZ-AM at 10:30 a.m. and on WJMJ-FM, the Archdiocesan radio station, each Wednesday afternoon at 2:05 p.m.