VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
The Pope has chosen a new Secretary for the Congregation for Bishops: Monsignor Ilson De Jesus Montanari who up until now has been the Congregation’s minute taker
ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY
Francis’ game of musical chairs continues: the face of the Roman Curia is slowly changing under the new pontificate. A week or so ago the Pope transferred the Secretary of the Congregation for Bishops, Lorenzo Baldisseri, to the General Secretariat of the Synod and is replacing him with Mgr. Ilson De Jesus Montanari from the Diocese of Riberaõ Preto. Until today Montanari had played a secondary role in the dicastery that oversees Episcopal nominations. The prelate, whom Pope Francis has known personally for about a year now, will now become Titular Archbishop of Capocilla and elevated to the dignity of archbishop.
With today’s nomination – a choice which has Francis written all over it – one of the minute takers of the dicastery led by Canadian cardinal Marc Ouellet is promoted to number two position. Although in the last ten years apostolic nuncios tended to be chosen for the role, it has recently often been the case that the Congregation’s new Secretary did not hold the title of bishop at the time of his nomination. For example, Ernesto Civardi (the dicastery’s number two man from 1967 to 1979) and Battista Re (Secretary from 1987 to 1989 and Prefect in 2000) were not bishops when they were appointed to the position.
Montanari is not the first Brazilian clergyman to be given a top position in the Congregation for Bishops: Lucas Moreira Neves was Secretary between 1979 and 1987 and then after a decade as Archbishop of San Salvador de Bahia he returned to the Vatican as the “bishop factory’s” Prefect. Mgr. Montanari left Brazil and was called to work in the Congregation in the final years of Cardinal Re’s prefecture, continuing under Ouellet, Re’s successor.
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