Rome - A request for agrément (plácet) has reached Italy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, paving the way for the appointment of a new Apostolic Nuncio to the Italian Republic and the Republic of San Marino.
What Italian diplomatic circles treat as a routine administrative formality carries far greater weight for the Catholic Church in Italy. It marks the end of the brief and troubled tenure of Archbishop Petar Rajič, now expected to leave the pontifical mission on Via Po and move “within the sacred walls”.
A nuncio who doesn’t deliver
The Bosnian-born prelate, previously Nuncio to Lithuania and later also accredited to Estonia and Latvia, was appointed to the post by Pope Francis on 11 March 2024. He arrived at a particularly delicate moment, tasked with succeeding Emil Paul Tscherrig, whose stewardship of the Nunciature proved disastrous. As has happened repeatedly during Francis’s pontificate, the Swiss prelate was promoted and granted the cardinal’s biretta - a move that caused resentment among a number of Italian ordinaries, especially those close to the Benedictine world, towards which Tscherrig often showed open condescension.
It cannot be ignored that Tscherrig - the first non-Italian Apostolic Nuncio in the post-Concordat history of bilateral relations - left behind a heavy legacy: a modus operandi that produced questionable, if not outright disastrous, episcopal choices and seriously undermined relations of communion and trust with dioceses across the peninsula. Any hope that change might come with Rajič’s arrival - he too, it should be noted, not drawn from the Italian clergy - soon collided with reality. His time on Via Po brought no tangible sign of renewal or course correction. On the contrary, his tenure has been defined by an alarming passivity in the face of the most difficult dossiers. To be sure, unlike Tscherrig, Rajič cuts an elegant figure and can command the room in formal settings. What he lacks is genuine capacity for governance. Over these years he has failed to assert himself in situations of extreme gravity and sensitivity which, for reasons that remain unclear, have simply been left unresolved. Where the Nunciature was expected to intervene with authority and parrhesia, the response was often silence - or worse, a strategy of burying the issues raised.
Those who work with him describe Rajič as a man who dislikes complications, a diplomat who avoids conflict. Yet the very nature of the munus entrusted to a Pontifical Legate does not allow for such reluctance. A nuncio cannot confine himself to ordinary administration or quiet self-preservation; he must act with pastoral urgency and juridical firmness, intervening first and foremost where serious failings threaten the salus animarum and the Church’s good governance. That duty, painfully, has been wholly neglected. As for the selection of bishops, that is a chapter in its own right. On the one hand, it is unreasonable to expect a nuncio with limited knowledge of Italian realities to operate with ease; on the other, it is clear that Pope Francis often handled appointments according to his own personal criteria, not infrequently disregarding the indications coming from Via Po or the Dicastery for Bishops. In recent years the Nunciature has often reduced itself to “summoning the chosen” or issuing “notifications of appointments already made”. It is also worth noting that, while the Dicasteries have seen an increase in women serving as advisers, consultations with priests in the dioceses appear to have been effectively abandoned. The result is plain: figures described in sharply negative terms by their own clergy have nevertheless been raised to the episcopate.
A new nuncio, a new disaster
“Inside here we need to get rid of Peña Parra as soon as possible.” Spoken with evident irritation by a prelate within the sacred rooms, the line captures the frustration of those who have closely watched the manoeuvres of the Substitute for General Affairs in the Secretariat of State. “Francis knew everything very well, and that’s precisely why he kept him there. That was his technique. I know, you know that I know. If you step out of line, you’re out,” a former collaborator of the previous Pope tells Silere non possum.
Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, a Venezuelan, was brought to the Vatican by Pope Francis, who recalled him from Mozambique. From that point he became one of Bergoglio’s most loyal allies, behaving with the confidence of someone who feels protected - backed by the powerful figure of the moment. Over the years he built a true power stronghold, fully aware of the decisive role the Substitute plays in governing the Holy See. It is well known that the Substitute’s power far exceeds that of the Secretary of State, because everything passes through his hands. The office carries immense authority - and for that very reason, in recent years, Peña Parra, obsessed by scandals such as Sloane Avenue and everything surrounding it, has had his offices swept for bugs with near-weekly frequency. Despite having dodged scandals and problems of every kind, Peña Parra is known within the walls for cultivating problematic relationships and for an often overbearing manner. “A constant coming and going of countrymen,” notes a critical “watchful eye” in the Apostolic Palace, pointing out how that system of “amoral familism” - long a hallmark of Bergoglio’s way of operating - found in Peña Parra its ideal interpreter. The Venezuelan archbishop has not hesitated to surround himself, inside and outside the Vatican, with Venezuelan “relatives and friends”, who are frequently taken on “exclusive tours” of the sacred palaces. A telling example is the network built around Fr Pietro Bongiovanni, parish priest of San Salvatore in Lauro - a setting that has turned into a veritable refugium peccatorum for talkative young men drifting between the Vatican and Rome’s churches, spreading stories (often false, yet embroidered from what they see and hear) about the misdeeds of prelates and priests. An environment Peña Parra frequented without ever grasping the full weight of his post.
Linked to this is another problematic circuit: the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, which - after the Castiglia scandal - continues to be a stage for a steady flow of questionable characters. Here, “presiding” over the scene, unsurprisingly, are petty monsignors with a passion for lace and finery, keen to play masters of ceremonies. People their home dioceses would not want to see even through binoculars - hence their attempts to cling to these systems to avoid slipping into oblivion. A picture that has only fuelled resentment and tension within the Vatican walls.
Earthquake in the Secretariat of State
With the election of Leo XIV, the Vatican entered a genuine existential crisis. Around Piazza Pia, Andrea Torniellicould be seen visibly agitated, clutching his mobile phone with the only photograph he had of Prevost - the one showing him on horseback. The absence of any direct channel to the new American cardinal fed his anxiety. It is no surprise that, just days after the election, he sent his protégé, Salvatore Cernuzio, to Peru to gather information on the new Pope. Everything, of course, packaged as an exclusive reconstruction of Prevost’s life - presented as a tribute, but in reality an attempt to fill a knowledge gap about a figure entirely outside their patterns and circles. For someone like “the writer” Tornielli, formed in the school of Fr Giacomo Tantardini, accustomed to hunting for the backstory, the little scandal behind every event, and dealing with cardinals and bishops more as informants than as subjects of reporting, this was an existential drama. The prevailing thought was blunt: “So what do we do now? He isn’t one of ours.” That agitation quickly produced a string of unforgivable blunders: from the white smoke that wasn’t white, to the erroneous announcement of the election of Pius XIV, to the cascade of mistakes across websites and social channels that have multiplied in recent months.
Meanwhile, within the Secretariat of State, some oscillated between relief that the candidate “of the newspapers and the Dicastery for Communication” - someone who understood their mechanisms - had not been elected, and panic at the election of a Pope wholly foreign to their logic and impossible to manage. Yet Leo XIV, mild in tone but firm in method, signalled almost immediately - more than to any other Dicastery - that the Secretariat of State was headed for an earthquake. Not an earthquake accompanied by newspaper campaigns against the “Bertone” of the moment, but a silent change, and all the more devastating for it.
Now, however, Leo XIV must confront the man who for years pulled the strings. Francis’s mistake was to follow the newspapers’ script which - ignorant of the internal dynamics of the “machine” - concentrated criticism on the top. Bergoglio attempted a sweeping reform clumsily, starting from above. Leo XIV, by contrast, has shown that he understands - despite those who considered him inexperienced in curial mechanics - that the true operational arm is not the Secretary of State, but the Substitute.
The “benign parish-priest” persona
For that reason, his attention has not centred on Pietro Parolin, despite Parolin’s silent, measured style making him an unsettling figure. Parolin has always acted with determination, both during his time as Secretary for Relations with States and International Organisations and after returning as Secretary of State. Yet his moves are often driven by personal interests: he has frequently summoned priests and bishops to lunches and dinners less to build relationships than to warn them about other bishops he considers rivals or dangerous. Those same bishops who, instead of being supported, were left to fend for themselves - a dynamic all too common in the Church, where there is no shortage of figures ready to sideline others to preserve their own image. Added to this are Parolin’s relationships - far from transparent - cultivated with people such as Stefania Falasca, Andrea Tornielli, Gianni Valente, and others. In practice, Parolin has operated in the shadows, doing what suited him, while maintaining the appearance of a “benign parish-priest”. That profile allowed him to survive even under a difficult pontificate like Bergoglio’s, where every papal remark on sensitive diplomatic matters could send the Secretary of State leaping from his chair. And now, like a seasoned chameleon, he is ready to adapt despite his defeat in the Sistine Chapel.
A way out for Substitute Peña Parra
Leo XIV now has a clear objective: to rid himself of the Venezuelan Peña Parra. In recent months the archbishop has been presented with three proposals, two of which he rejected outright - despite knowing full well that it is not possible to refuse more than three. The last proposal, however, is a compromise he accepted because it allows him to remain in Rome, avoiding transfer to some remote corner of the world, as was initially envisaged. The reason is straightforward: figures like him, often marginalised for their modus operandi, if left near the Vatican, tend to continue obstructing the Pontiff with the very dynamics once criticised. Peña Parra, in fact, wants to stay in Rome not only to protect the web of contacts and relationships built over time, but also to keep a hand on the levers. For all the triumphant talk about Apostolic Constitutions, these archbishops have no intention of going back home. It is precisely through his insistence that his name has landed on the desk of Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani as a candidate to replace Petar Rajič. The Holy See is now waiting for the agrément to arrive from Piazzale della Farnesina and Palazzo Begni, so that the appointment can be formalised.
Fr. T.D.
Silere non possum