Pope names Cebuano cleric nuncio to Tanzania

MANILA, Philippines—Pope Benedict XVI has appointed a Filipino archbishop as the Vatican’s new diplomatic representative to the Republic of Tanzania.

Archbishop Francisco Montecillo Padilla, who hails from Cebu, was appointed by the Pope on November 10 as the new papal nuncio to the East African nation, according to a report posted on the news website of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

“He will take over the post left vacant by Archbishop Joseph Chennoth who was named apostolic nuncio to Japan last August 2011,” the report said.

Padilla is currently the papal envoy to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands—with a combined Catholic population of around 1.7 million—a post he has held since May 2006.

Padilla will face a more challenging task in Tanzania, which has at least 10.4 million Catholics and is one of the African countries where the Catholic Church is growing.

As papal nuncio, Padilla will not only be responsible for maintaining cordial ties between the Vatican and Tanzania, he will also have the crucial task of screening the list of candidates the Pope will peruse when he chooses the next bishops in Tanzania.

The CBCP report noted that the 58-year-old Vatican ambassador also had a brother serving in the diplomatic service of the Holy See.

His older brother, Archbishop Osvaldo Padilla, is currently  the apostolic nuncio in South Korea and Mongolia, it said.

Besides the Padilla brothers, the Vatican also has two more Filipino ambassadors—Archbishops Adolfo Tito Yllana (the nuncio to the Congo, which has the biggest Catholic population in Africa) and Bernardito Auza, the papal nuncio to Haiti.