MARONGIO-NURRA, EMANUELE. - Archbishop of Cagliari, b. at Bessude on 28 March 1794, d. at Cagliari on 12 Sept. 1866.
Formerly rector of the Seminary and vicar general of the archdiocese of Sassari, in Aug. 1842 he was raised to the archiepiscopal see of Cagliari. A zealous defender of the rights of the Church, he vigorously opposed the implementation of the secularizing laws of the Piedmontese government and in 1850 pronounced excommunication against the officials who had carried out a search of the archives of the archiepiscopal « Contadoria » in order to ascertain the accounts of the diocesan charitable institutions.
He was then forced to leave Sardinia and moved to Rome, whence he continued to guide his flock spiritually through a substantial series of pastoral letters. During his exile, which lasted until 1866, he devoted himself to the translation and commentary of the Regula pastoralis of St Gregory the Great (Turin 1858), and to a learned exegesis of the Davidic psalms, which remained unpublished. Restored to his see on 1 March 1866, and triumphantly received by the people of Cagliari, he survived the belated reparation by only a few months.