Amid growing controversy in Spain, the wait for a new papal nuncio has triggered a cycle of reports and denials that Spain’s government has blocked a papal appointment over tensions between the Spanish government and the country’s hierarchy.
But sources close to the Spanish nunciature have told The Pillar that while Spain has not yet approved the appointment of Archbishop Piero Pioppo as nuncio to Spain the government is dragging its feet as a protest over recent tensions with the Spanish bishops.
There has been discussion about who will serve as apostolic nuncio to Spain since former nuncio Archbishop Bernardito Auza left Madrid for the European Union in March.
Even as Spain secularizes, the position is carefully watched in the country, because of the official roles which the Church plays in the country, born out of constitutionally-mandated cooperation between the official secular Spanish government and the Catholic Church.
In that context, Pioppo, ordained a priest in 1985, has been regarded in the country as the Vatican Secretariat of State’s preferred candidate for the Spanish nunciature.
Archbishop Pioppo has a lengthy resume for the job: He served as Cardinal Angelo Sodano’s Vatican secretary in the early 2000s, held a role at the Vatican’s bank, and has been apostolic nuncio in Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, and Indonesia.
After various Spanish outlets reported July 24 that Pioppo was to become the nuncio to Spain, Vatican blog Silere Non Possum reported that the appointment had been derailed after weeks of waiting for the Spanish government’s approval, to the point in which the Vatican was already planning to go in a different direction with the appointment.
Spanish government officials denied that account in late July, according to a a Spanish foreign affairs outlet.
But sources close to the Spanish nunciature have told The Pillar that the appointment had not been vetoed by the Spanish government — but that Spanish civic officials are believed to be slow-walking the approval to show its displeasure with the local hierarchy.
The situation — with bishops waiting for the government to approve the appointment of a nuncio — has been tense for months.
In June, those tensions escalated, when Archbishop Luis Argüello, president of the Spanish bishops’ conference, publicly urged Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call early elections over recent corruption scandals involving government officials — a suggestion many bishops endorsed.
Argüello’s call was widely seen as a vote of no confidence in the Spanish government.
In fact, Justice Minister Félix Bolaños accused the Church of siding with the far right, prompting Argüello to insist on his call for an early election.
The controversy brought the tensions between the Spanish government and the Church to its highest point.
But the relationship had already been difficult for quite some time.
Relations were already strained over a government-commissioned clerical abuse report, disputes about religious education, and conflicts over gender and abortion policy.
But the biggest source of controversy has been due to the Valley of the Fallen, a monument built by dictator Francisco Franco in 1959 dedicated to the deceased during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
The monument is deeply Catholic, and includes a 500 foot vertical cross, a cross-shaped basilica, and a Benedictine monastery.
In May, the Spanish government and the local hierarchy reached a compromise to “resignify” the secular elements of the monument – a move many Catholics believe is just a preamble to also modifying the religious sections of the monument.
The secret negotiations, leaked before the results were made public, involved Cardinal José Cobo, Archbishop of Madrid, and Bolaños on the side of the government, with the final meeting held in Rome in the presence of Secretary of State Cardinal Parolin, shortly before Pope Francis died.
Custody of the monument belongs, among others, to the Spanish state and private foundations.
Before the compromise, then-apostolic nuncio Archbishop Bernardito Auza had been involved in discussions about the monastery’s future, and was a strong opponent of the “resignification” of the monument, according to sources close to the Spanish nunciature.
Auza was considered a theological conservative and defended the former prior of the Benedictine monastery in the Valley, Fr. Santiago Cantera when the government pressured for his removal, something that eventually occurred in March 2025, and defended the presence of the Benedictines in the monument.
Auza was not well-liked by the Spanish government as he wasn’t shy in showing his theological conservatism.
For example, in December 2024, Auza celebrated the inaugural Mass of the 6th Transatlantic Summit organized by the Political Network for Values, a conference reuniting dozens of conservative and Christian politicians and activists from Europe, Africa, and the Americas.
In the end, delay of the approval of Pioppo’s appointment as nuncio might be a merely diplomatic way of showing displeasure with the local hierarchy.
But there is also a chance that the Spanish government has a vested interest in seeing that the next nuncio is not another Auza.
During the last few months of Francis' pontificate, many names were circled as possibilities for the next nuncio in Spain, many of them with a theological profile closer to Francis.
But Pioppo was thought to be the Secretariat of State’s preferred candidate.
Yet, as the former secretary of Amato, Pioppo himself has a reputation for theological conservatism — something that the Spanish government might not be inclined to accept.
Still, when even dictatorships are trying to ingratiate themselves with Pope Leo at the onset of his pontificate, vetoing the appointment of an apostolic nuncio would be an unusually bold move.
Such a decision would set the tone for the diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Spain under Leo’s pontificate — especially with negotiations over certain aspects of the “re-signification” of the Valley of the Fallen still underway, and with the Vatican in a position to halt the talks.