Monsignor Arnaldo Catalan (Photo from the Manila Cathedral)
After 20 years in the pope’s foreign service, another Filipino cleric — Monsignor Arnaldo Catalan — was named apostolic nuncio, the fifth to be named ambassador of Vatican City, according to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).
Pope Francis named the 55-year-old Catalan as the Holy See’s envoy to Rwanda after serving in various capacities at the papal legations in Zambia, Kuwait, Mexico, Honduras, Turkey, India, Argentina, Canada, the Philippines, and most recently as chargé d’affaires in Taiwan
The CBCP said the Vatican announced on Monday that Catalan would replace Archbishop Andrzej Józwowicz of Poland, who was transferred to Iran in June.
Catalan hails from Manila and was the first priest from the Archdiocese of Manila to be named papal nuncio.
The first Filipino apostolic nuncio was Rev. Osvaldo Padilla of Sogod, Cebu, who spent his entire clerical career in the Vatican’s foreign service and whom the late Pope John Paul II in 1990 named papal envoy to five countries, including a lengthy stint in Korea and Mongolia. He retired in 2017 and, now 79, lives in Cebu.
New archbishop
In 2001, Pope John Paul II also named the second Filipino nuncio, Rev. Adolfo Tito Yllana of Naga City, who has represented the Vatican in several countries. Last year, Yllana was named nuncio to Israel and Palestine.
In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI named Padilla’s younger brother, Rev. Francisco Padilla, nuncio to Papua New Guinea after several years in the Holy See’s diplomatic service. Pope Francis later named him nuncio to several countries in the Middle East. He is now nuncio to Guatemala.
In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI named another career diplomat, Rev. Bernardito Auza of Talibon, Bohol, nuncio to Haiti and Pope Francis later promoted him as nuncio to the United Nations. He is now nuncio to Spain.
In accordance with Vatican custom, the four nuncios are all archbishops, and Catalan, a priest since 1994, will also be ordained into the episcopacy at the Manila Cathedral on Feb. 11.
Catalan will be consecrated by former Manila Archbishop Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, now prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, incumbent Manila Archbishop Cardinal Jose Advincula, and Archbishop Charles Brown, the apostolic nuncio to the Philippines.
Like most papal envoys, Catalan was also bestowed titular See of Apollonia in Albania.
READ: Ordination as bishop of Filipino apostolic nuncio to Rwanda set at Manila Cathedral on Feb.11