Bishop Eugenio Scarpellini of El Alto, Bolivia, died on July 15, 2020, after contracting COVID-19. He was 66.
The Italian-born bishop was remembered by colleagues as a tireless promoter of missions, who worked to improve relations with the government and intervened to defuse tensions in 2019 after protests over election irregularities rocked the South American country.
Scarpellini was hospitalized in El Alto — situated at an elevation of more than 13,000 feet next to the capital, La Paz — but on July 15, he twice suffered "cardiac arrest, and the doctors were unable to do anything."
Scarpellini was born Jan. 8, 1954, in Verdellino, Italy, and ordained in 1978. He was drawn to the priesthood at a young age, telling his parents at his first Communion, "I want to be a priest."
Scarpellini arrived in Bolivia as a missionary of the Diocese of Bergamo, Italy. He called his arrival in South America "a second baptism," and subsequently became a Bolivian national.
He held several positions in the Archdiocese of La Paz until being elevated to auxiliary bishop of El Alto in 2010 and made bishop there in 2013.
Scarpellini served as secretary-general of the Bolivian bishops' conference and also became director of the Pontifical Mission Society in Bolivia, according to Fides. He subsequently served as the society's director for the Americas and helped organize the V American Missionary Conference in 2018 in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.