Ordained to the priesthood on 29 June 1952 by Bishop Domenico Menna, he was a student at the Pontifical Lombard Seminary of Saints Ambrose and Charles in Urbe (Italian: Pontificio seminario lombardo dei santi Ambrogio e Carlo in Urbe) and graduated in Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1957, defending a thesis on the redemption from death in Augustine's thought.

The thesis was then revised by the author and published posthumously in 2012 by Città Nuova with the title "Timore e speranza: la redenzione della morte in Agostino".

[3] On 11 February 1992 he recognised the Casa del Giovane, founded by Don Enzo Boschetti, as a private association of the Christian faithful and approved its statutes.

As president of the Ecclesial Commission for Justice and Peace of the Italian Episcopal Conference, he coordinated the document Educare alla Legalità (English: Educating for legality), approved in Rome on 4 October 1991.

[5] During his episcopate he carried out two pastoral visits and called, 76 years after the previous one, the 20th Diocesan Synod (inaugurated on 9 April 1998 and concluded on 8 December 2002).