Vatican City - Pope Leo XIV acted today with a series of appointments affecting some of the most sensitive points within the Roman Curia and the pontifical diplomatic service. These were decisions that Silere non possum had anticipated in recent weeks, and whose formalisation required only the completion of the necessary diplomatic steps.
The Holy Father has appointed His Excellency the Most Reverend Monsignor Petar Rajič, Titular Archbishop of Sarsenterum, until now Apostolic Nuncio to Italy and the Republic of San Marino, as Prefect of the Papal Household. At the same time, Leo XIV has transferred His Excellency the Most Reverend Monsignor Edgar Peña Parra, Titular Archbishop of Telepte, from the post of Substitute for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State to that of Apostolic Nuncio to Italy and the Republic of San Marino. Succeeding him in the First Section of the Secretariat of State will be His Excellency the Most Reverend Monsignor Paolo Rudelli, Titular Archbishop of Mesembria, until now Apostolic Nuncio to Colombia.
The new appointments: significant choices in the Curia
This is a reshuffle involving three central points. First of all, the Papal Household, which regulates the functioning of the Pope’s public schedule, audiences, ceremonies and the institutional relations most closely connected to the presence of the Pontiff. Then the nunciature in Italy and San Marino, a post of particular importance because it stands at the heart of relations between the Holy See, the Italian episcopate and the institutions of the Peninsula. Finally, the Secretariat of State, in its most sensitive sector, that of General Affairs, through which pass the ordinary management of the Church’s central government and a decisive part of the coordination of curial activity. Silere non possum had already reflected on the significance of these appointments in this article.
Paolo Rudelli returns to the Vatican
The appointment of Monsignor Paolo Rudelli deserves particular attention, because it represents the most delicate and strategic choice made by Leo XIV for the Section for General Affairs. This is the office where the most sensitive dossiers converge and from which the ordinary work of governing the Holy See takes shape. It is here that decisions, directions and operational passages of primary importance pass through. For this reason, Leo XIV has chosen a very specific profile, anything but accidental.
Born in Gazzaniga, in the province of Bergamo, on 16 July 1970, Rudelli was ordained a priest on 10 June 1995 for the Diocese of Bergamo by Bishop Roberto Amadei. He completed studies in moral theology and canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University and entered the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in 1998. On 1 July 2001 he entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See, serving in the pontifical representations in Ecuador and Poland, as well as working in the Section for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State. In 2014, Pope Francis appointed him Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg; in 2019 he was appointed Titular Archbishop of Mesembria and Apostolic Nuncio, later receiving episcopal ordination from Pope Francis himself. He was subsequently sent to Zimbabwe in 2020 and then to Colombia in 2023.
Rudelli’s profile presents the image of an ecclesiastic formed with solidity on the academic level and shaped within pontifical diplomacy, with experience already gained precisely in the Section for General Affairs and consolidated through highly varied international assignments. He knows the inner workings of the Secretariat of State from within and, at the same time, brings with him the outlook of someone who has measured on the ground the concrete weight of decisions taken in Rome. With these appointments, Leo XIV has intervened in three significant points of pontifical governance: he entrusts the Papal Household, which had long remained without a stable holder, to Petar Rajič; he exiles Edgar Peña Parra to the nunciature in Via Po; and he recalls Paolo Rudelli to the Secretariat of State in order to place him at one of the most delicate points in the entire curial structure. Petar Rajič’s role will above all be one of representation, and this is a good thing given that, in matters of governance, he has appeared wholly unreliable. The decision to exile Peña Parra from the Vatican also arose from an assessment of his work during the years spent in the Secretariat of State. Leo XIV would have preferred him far from Rome as well, but in the end a compromise solution prevailed.
These are choices that show the Pope’s determination gradually to surround himself with collaborators considered reliable, thus giving a more personal and firmer character to the government of the Church.
fr.F.C.
Silere non possum