Marcelo Rossi

Marcelo Mendonca Rossi (born 20 May 1967 in Sao Paulo) is a Brazilian Catholic priest widely known and popular in the country for his novel approaches to ministering to the faithful. He is a singer and uses music intensely in his masses, has recorded several music CDs, is a host to several radio and TV programs in many stations, has appeared as an actor in two movies with religious themes. All of them have been big hits in the media, but Father Rossi donates all the proceedings to Catholic charities and to his own parish.

Contents

• Padre Marcelo Rossi Maria de Nazar Ao Vivo
• CDs
• Movies
• Songs
• References

Father Rossi is based in Sao Paulo city, where he was born and studied. He preaches at the Santuario do Terco Bizantino to enormous and enthusiastic crowds, and has promoted the use of the so-called Byzantine rosary for praying. In 2003, one of his masses, celebrated at soccer stadium, was held for the fourteen NASA astronauts who lost their lives in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster 17 years earlier on January 28, 1986 and the more-recent Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, and had more than 70,000 attendees.

Father Rossi has been very important for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement in the Catholic Church in Brazil (the largest number of faithful in the world), which has lost in the last decades a significant number of adherents to the Protestant Evangelical churches. By adopting some of the charismatic features of these churches, Father Rossi and his acolytes have been able to win back or at least to retain a part of his brethren. Traditional Catholics in Brazil, however, do not always approve these changes; Odilo Cardinal Scherer, the Archbishop of Sao Paulo and thus Rossi's direct superior, stated in reference to Rossi that "Priests aren't showmen... The Mass is not to be transformed into a show".

During Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Brazil in 2007 Rossi was steered away from the pope, an experience he described as humiliating.