The Diplomat
Pope Francis joked yesterday with Spain’s new ambassador to the Holy See, Isabel Celaá, who presented her Credentials to him during an audience in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace.
“Thank you very much for coming with your comb-over”, the Pontiff said with a smile after Celaá – who was dressed in strict black, as protocol dictates, and wearing a mantilla – showed him the credentials that accredit her as Spain’s ambassador to the Holy See, as can be seen in a video released by Rome Reports. The Vatican press office has not issued a press release on the audience, as is customary in these cases.
However, according to Europa Press, the communications department of the Spanish Embassy issued a note indicating that the meeting with the Pope lasted about 30 minutes, and began with the protocol greeting in the so-called Throne Room. The new ambassador went with her family to the Vatican and introduced the Pope to her husband, her two daughters and some family members, as well as the embassy’s diplomatic staff.
Celaá presented the Pontiff with a rosary from the Carthusian monastery in Burgos and a small statue of the bust of Saint Ignatius, on behalf of a Jesuit community in the Basque Country. As usual, the Pope, for his part, presented him with a copy of his main magisterial texts, as well as a blessed rosary. The communiqué from the Spanish embassy to the Holy See states that the meeting with the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, has been postponed as the Italian Cardinal and the Pope’s right-hand man is away from Rome.
Before presenting her credentials as ambassador to the Pope, the former Minister of Education and former spokesperson for Pedro Sánchez’s government presided over an event at the embassy on 8 March, Women’s Day, in which she vindicated the value of women fleeing the war in Ukraine. “I choose or we choose to evoke also and above all all all those women who with great suffering are dragging their children and their suitcases all over Central Europe, fleeing war and death”, Celaá declared before the people gathered in the Palace that houses the diplomatic legation in Rome’s central Piazza di Spagna.
