<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Holy See announced this Monday the appointment of Italian Archbishop Piero Pioppo as the new Apostolic Nuncio to Spain and the Principality of Andorra.</strong></h4> Piero Pioppo, born in Savona in 1960, ordained a priest in 1985, Archbishop of Torcello, and current Nuncio of the Holy See to Indonesia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), succeeds Bernardito Auza, a Filipino, as Nunciature Minister. His successor was postponed due to the death of Pope Francis (on April 21) and the subsequent conclave in which the current Pontiff, American Robert Francis Prevost (Leo XIV), was elected, a process that paralyzed the Holy See's major decisions. Pioppo, who speaks four languages (Italian, English, French, and Spanish), was a close collaborator of Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Secretary of State of the Holy See from 1991 to 2006 and prelate of the IOR (Institute for Works of Religion), the well-known Vatican Bank. On the doctrinal level, Pioppo is considered a conservative. Last July, the InfoVaticana website reported, citing "well-informed" Vatican sources, that Italian Archbishop Piero Pioppo would be the new apostolic nuncio to Spain. However, Silere non possum, an Italian news site dedicated to the activities of the Pope, the Holy See, and the Catholic Church, exclusively reported at the end of that same month that, "after weeks of waiting and confidential negotiations," the name of the Archbishop of Savona had disappeared from the radar." Likewise, Vatican sources informed The Diplomat around the same time that Piero Pioppo's proposal had been submitted by the Holy See's Secretariat of State shortly after Bernardito Auza's transfer to the representation to the European Union (which took place last March), but the Spanish government "discreetly blocked the process, without offering public explanations." Finally, diplomatic sources assured The Diplomat that this information was "false."
