Pope reshuffles top Vatican offices

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday (July 30) made changes to several top Vatican positions, including naming Italian Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella to lead a new office aimed at reigniting Catholic faith in the West. “I have decided to create a new body with the aim of promoting a renewed evangelism,” the pope said […]

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday (July 30) made changes to several top Vatican positions, including naming Italian Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella to lead a new office aimed at reigniting Catholic faith in the West.

“I have decided to create a new body with the aim of promoting a renewed evangelism,” the pope said on Monday, while announcing the new Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization.

Fisichella, who had been president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, which oversees bioethical issues such as abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research, will be succeeded by Spanish Opus Dei priest Monsignor Ignacio Carrasco de Paula.


The Italian-born Fisichella, a longtime Vatican bureaucrat, had courted controversy last year when he sided with Brazilian doctors who performed an abortion on a 9-year-old rape victim. The local bishop had declared the doctors automatically excommunicated, but Fisichella called it the lesser evil.

Benedict also named Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec as head of the powerful Congregation for Bishops — the first time a North American prelate has been put in charge of the body responsible for vetting bishop appointments.

Benedict also named Swiss Bishop Kurt Koch as president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the church’s top ecumenical post. Koch, 60, replaces German Cardinal Walter Kasper, who is retiring after nine years in the post.

“We see in Bishop Koch a reliable partner for all those involved in the ecumenical movement and trust he will continue Cardinal Walter Kasper’s emphasis on spiritual ecumenism,” said the Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches.

The pope also named his ambassador to the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, as ambassador to Poland.

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