Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is set to become the new papal nuncio
to the United States, according to Vatican sources who asked to remain
anonymous.Archbishop Viganò will succeed Archbishop Pietro Sambi who died in July from complications that developed after he had a delicate lung surgery.
Archbishop Viganò, 70, is currently the second in command within the Governatorate of the Vatican City, the office in charge of many of the City State’s departments such as its police, observatory, museums, post office and tourist information service.
The Italian newspaper La Stampa this week claimed to
have copies of the private correspondence confirming the appointment of
Archbishop Viganò as nuncio to the U.S.
The paper reported that
Archbishop Viganò made it clear to the Vatican’s Secretariat of State
that he had no desire to be posted overseas, and that he preferred to
remain in Rome.
The response came in a letter from the Vatican
Secretary of State, dated Aug. 13, which informed Archbishop Viganò of
Pope Benedict’s personal desire that he go to the U.S.
It stated that
the Pope wanted an experienced diplomat in charge of the Washington,
D.C. nunciature during an election year in the U.S.
The newspaper
reported that Archbishop Viganò would have preferred to take over from
his immediate superior at the Governatorate of the Vatican City,
Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, who submitted his resignation to the Pope last
year after turning 75.
The cardinal's resignation has not yet been
accepted and no successor has been appointed.
Archbishop Carlo
Mario Viganò is a native of the town of Varese in the northern Italian
region of Lombardy.
He was ordained a priest in 1968 and entered the
Holy See’s diplomatic service in 1973. Since then he has served in the
diplomatic missions to Iraq, the United Kingdom and the Council of
Europe in Strasbourg, France.
He was nuncio to Nigeria between 1992 and
1998. He also worked in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State from 1978 to
1989. No date has yet been set for his arrival in Washington, D.C.
“We haven’t heard anything official yet so we can’t confirm an official time scale,” a spokesman for the nunciature told CNA on August 29.
“We haven’t heard anything official yet so we can’t confirm an official time scale,” a spokesman for the nunciature told CNA on August 29.