Roman Catholic Cardinal. Ozieri born Mario Francesco Pompedda entered seminary in Sassari, later furthering his studies at the Regional Seminary of Cagliari and in Rome at the Almo Collegio Capranica, the Pontifical Gregorian University, the Pontifical Biblical Institute and the Pontifical Lateran University, earning a doctorate in theology, a licentiate in Sacred Scriptures, a doctorate in utroque iure in both canon and civil laws and the degree of 'avvocate rotale' of the Sacred Roman Rota. Ordained priest on December 23, 1951, for thirty years he performed ministry in the Roman parish of Nostra Signora di Guadalupe a Monte Mario. Ecclesiastical counsellor of the Roman Union of Catholic Jurists, he joined the tribunal of the Sacred Roman Rota in 1955 where he served as defender of the matrimonial bond and as prelate auditor between 1969 and 1993. Elected dean on September 11, 1993, two months later he was made president of the appellate court of the State of Vatican City. Awarded an honorary doctorate by the faculty of canon law of the Catholic Institute of Paris in October 1995, he was named ecclesiastical counsellor of the International Union of Catholic Jurists. For more than twenty years he was a faculty member of the Studio Rotale and also taught at the faculty of canon law of the Pontifical Gregorian University and at the Roman Athenaeum of the Santa Croce. Elected archbishop of the titular see Bisarcio on November 29, 1997, he received his episcopal Consecration on January 6 of the following year at the Patriarchal Vatican Basilica from Pope John Paul II. Appointed prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature and president of the Cassation Court of the State of Vatican City on November 16, 1999, the named Pontiff created him cardinal deacon in the consistory of February 21, 2001 with the deaconry of the Annunciazione della Beata Vergina Maria a Via Ardeatina. President of the Commission for the Controversies, he resigned the prefecture of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature on May 27, 2004. Grand Prior of the Sacred Military Order Costantiniana di San Giorgio, Pompedda died at the Agostino Gemelli Clinic in Rome, where he was hospitalized for several days of a brain hemorrhage. Shortly before, he received a pacemaker after suffering from a cardiac crisis. Pope Benedict XVI celebrated his funeral on Friday, October 20, at the altar of the chair of the Patriarchal Vatican Basilica. Temporarily buried in the tomb of the cathedral chapter in the cemetery of Ozieri, on Thursday, February 18, 2010 his remains were reinterred in a specially constructed sarcophagus inside the cathedral of Ozieri in the chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament near the sarcophagus which houses the remains of Monsignor Francesco Cogoni (1894-1980), former bishop of the diocese of Ozieri. Following the religious ceremony held on the occasion, a civil service took place, during which the former Piazza Cirenaica was renamed Piazza Cardinale Pompedda in the historic area of the city.