Vatican appoints Pinoy archbishop as papal nuncio to Tanzania

MANILA, Philippines - The Vatican recently appointed a Filipino archbishop to serve as papal nuncio to the Republic of Tanzania.

CBCPNews, the official news service provider of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), reported that Pope Benedict XVI assigned Archbishop Francisco Montecillo Padilla to act as representative of the Holy See in Tanzania.

Prior to his transfer to Tanzania, Archbishop Padilla was assigned as the apostolic nuncio in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands since May 2006.

The 58-year-old Filipino prelate would replace Archbishop Joseph Chennoth who was reassigned as the apostolic nuncio to Japan last August.

Padilla reportedly completed his elementary education at the Colegio de Sto. Niño de Cebu. He entered the Pope John XIII Minor Seminary in Cebu City, and subsequently took his Philosophical studies at the Seminario Mayor de San Carlos in the same province.

He then took his Theological studies and earned his Bachelor and Licentiate Degrees in Sacred Theology (STB and STL) from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) Central Seminary in España, Manila.

In 1985, shortly before joining the church’s diplomatic service, Padilla earned his Doctoral Degree in Sacred Theology (STD) and his Licentiate in Canon Law (JCL), graduating summa cum laude (with highest academic honors), from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

He is reportedly the third Filipino nuncio and the second to come from Cebu. The first Filipino nuncio who also hailed from Cebu is Padilla’s elder brother Archbishop Osvaldo Padilla, who was named in 1990 by the late Pope John Paul II as the apostolic nuncio to Panama.

Since April 2008, Osvaldo has been detailed as the Vatican’s envoy to Mongolia.

The other Filipino nuncio is Archbishop Adolfo Tito Yllana who is from Naga City. He is currently the papal nuncio to the Democratic Republic of Congo.