He then served as a professor and the rector of the seminary, canon of the cathedral chapter, and diocesan chancellor in Civita Castellana.

As secretary, he served as the second-highest official of that dicastery, successively under Cardinals Domenico Jorio and Benedetto Aloisi Masella.

Pope John XXIII created him Cardinal Deacon of San Cesareo in Palatio in the consistory of 15 December 1958.

He received his episcopal consecration on the following 19 April from Pope John, with Cardinals Giuseppe Pizzardo and Aloisi Masella serving as co-consecrators, in the Lateran Basilica.

Called "the man who never laughs",[1] Bracci was one of the cardinal electors in the 1963 papal conclave that elected Pope Paul VI.