High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Paolo Dezza, S.J. (December 13, 1901 in Parma, Italy – December 17, 1999 in Rome) was a Roman Catholic Jesuit cardinal who led the Pontifical Gregorian University during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII, whom he aided in the preparation of the dogma of the Assumption of Mary. He was confessor to Pope Paul VI and Paul`s successor, Pope John Paul I, and was a teacher of Pope John Paul I`s successor, Pope John Paul II. In 1981, Pope John Paul II appointed Dezza and an assistant, then-Father (later Archbishop) Giuseppe Pittau, S.J., to head the Jesuit order, which would have preferred a liberal American, Father Vincent O`Keefe. In 1991, Dezza was named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II out of gratitude for his services to the Church in the management of the crisis and for his work as a theologian and university president. Pope John Paul II personally conducted the Mass of Christian Burial for the funeral of Paolo Cardinal Dezza on December 20, 1999.