Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli as the new Nuncio Abstol to India and Nepal.
Mar 20, 2021
Le Bijay Kumar Minj
Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli as the new Nuncio Abstol for India and Nepal.
Archbishop Girelli, 67, was previously a papal nuncio to Israel and Cyprus and an apostolic representative to Jerusalem and Palestine.
The Archbishop of Italy was announced on 13 March. He replaces Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro, an Italian, who has been deported to Brazil.
Archbishop Girelli was born on March 13, 1953, in Predore, Bergamom in the Lombardy region of northern Italy. He was ordained a priest on June 17, 1978, for the Diocese of Bergamo. He has a doctorate in theology and a master’s degree in language law.
He entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See on July 13, 1987, and served in papal diplomatic missions in Cameroon, New Zealand and in the general affairs department of the Secretariat of State. He then held the position of counselor in the apostolic language in the United States.
Pope Benedict XVI sent him nuncio to Indonesia on April 13, 2006, and as archbishop of Capreae. He was ordained bishop in June 2006 by Cardinal Angelo Sodano.
He was appointed as a nuncio to Timor-Leste on October 10, 2006, in addition to his duties as a nuncio to Indonesia. On January 13, 2011, he was appointed nuncio to Singapore, apostolic representative to Malaysia and Brunei, and non-resident pontifical representative for Vietnam.
She was also ordained as a nun for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on June 18, 2011.
On September 13, 2017, he was appointed as a nuncio to Israel and an apostolic representative to Jerusalem and Palestine, and two days later he was appointed nuncio to Cyprus. In addition to Italian, he also speaks English and French. ––Ucanews.com