Vatican announces appointment of new papal nuncio to Phl

MANILA, Philippines -  The Vatican announced yesterday the appointment of Italian Archbishop Giuseppe Pinto as the new Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines.

CBCPNews, the official news service provider of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), reported that Archbishop Pinto would replace Archbishop Edward Joseph Adams, who has been transferred to Greece.

Pinto’s appointment was officially announced in Rome on May 10 at noon.

Pinto was born on May 26, 1952 and was ordained as a priest on April 1, 1978. He is a native of Bari, Italy.

The 58-year-old prelate holds a doctorate in Canon Law and is fluent in four languages – French, English and Spanish aside from his native Italian.

Archbishop Pinto entered the Diplomatic Service of the Holy See on May 1, 1984 and has served successively in Papua New Guinea, Argentina and the Secretariat of State in Vatican City.

He also served as apostolic nuncio in Senegal, Cape Verde, Mali and Guinea-Bissau, and has been assigned as apostolic delegate to Mauritania.

Prior to his current appointment, he was apostolic nuncio in Chile since 2007.

Archbishop Pinto will be the 16th in the line of apostolic delegates and apostolic nuncios to the Philippines.