As Pope Leo XIV continues to consider how to reshape his curia, Vatican observers are also eyeing a different slate of posts which could shape both the Church in Rome, and world politics: apostolic nuncios.
These papal diplomats play a crucial role in representing the Holy See to governments and have a major role in the appointment of bishops in their host countries. Pope Francis left relatively few vacancies or senior nuncios in post past retirement age at the end of his reign, but the few he did include some of the most important diplomatic missions in the world.
In fact, Pope Leo has already made two major diplomatic appointments, making Archbishop Piero Pioppo apostolic nuncio to Spain and appointing Archbishop Mirosław Stanisław Wachowski as nuncio to Iraq.
So what are the most important pending diplomatic appointments on the Vatican board?
Cardinal Christophe Pierre is already 79 years old and has served as apostolic nuncio to the US for almost a decade, meaning that he has overseen seismic changes in both the ecclesiastical and American political landscape: three fractious presidential elections; the 2018 scandals around Theodore McCarrick; the covid-19 pandemic; the Black Lives Matter protests over race and policing in 2020; the USCCB’s Eucharistic coherence fight; the synod on synodality project; and the Church in America’s Eucharistic Revival.
But with the cardinal set to turn 80 in January, a change at Massachusetts Ave. seems likely to follow Pierre’s next-and-almost-certainly-last appearance at the USCCB’s Fall plenary assembly next month.
The appointment of a new nuncio to the US will speak volumes about how Pope Leo intends to engage with the government of his home nation.
And after years of tensions between Pope Francis and the U.S. bishops’ conference — tensions which sometimes appeared to be a product even of the pope’s own supporters — it will be interesting to see what kind of diplomat Leo sends to speak to his American brothers.
Archbishop Nikola Eterovic has been the nuncio to Germany since 2013 and is also 74 years old. Therefore, change could be soon to come.
While most challenging apostolic nunciatures are considered so because of the political situation of their countries, Germany’s case is particular, as the challenges come from within the Church as well.
The German bishops’ conference launched their controversial “synodal way” in 2019, a multi-year program which often drew sharp criticism from the Vatican over to its underlying theology and ecclesiology, with various curial officials warning that its proposals risked causing a schism and contradicted Church doctrine on female ordination, sexual ethics, and other matters.
Eterovic has been a deep critic of the Synodal Way, saying in 2023 that German bishops’ should “reject ideological colonization, including gender ideology,” and drawing criticism from Bishop George Bätzing, president of the German bishops’ conference, in the process.
Eterovic also said at the moment that synodality was more of “a matter of spirit and style than of structures… Rather than founding new institutions with the risk of further increasing bureaucracy, it is imperative to revive already existing diocesan bodies,” he said.
Eterovic’s successor will inherit one of the Church’s most delicate intra-ecclesial diplomatic challenges.
Portugal’s nunciature, once one of the Vatican’s most prestigious diplomatic posts, is today considered more of a capstone assignment for experienced nuncios approaching retirement.
While the appointment still carries diplomatic weight and career credibility, the last nuncio there, Archbishop Ivo Scapolo, arrived fresh from serious controversy in his previous assignment in Chile, where he was heavily criticized for his handling of the abuse crisis there, and especially for his role in the appointment of Bishop Juan Barros, who resigned in 2018 amid cover-up allegations and triggered a national crisis in the episcopacy which at one point included Pope Francis.
When Scapolo was transferred to Lisbon in 2019, he arrived with the Chilean ecclesiastical scene still in turmoil. He retired early, at 72 — three years before the mandatory retirement age — in May 2025.
Many will be hoping for the next arrival in Lisbon to have an easier landing.
Cardinal Mario Zenari is one of the longest serving nuncios in the same role, having been stationed in Syria since 2008, with Pope Francis making him a cardinal in 2016.
Zenari has guided Vatican diplomacy during the Syrian Civil War, the rise and fall of ISIS, and the fall of the Al-Assad dictatorship.
But at 79, his retirement is now near.
His replacement will have to deal with the tensions in the country, as the Al-Assad dictatorship was replaced by a transitional government led by former Al-Qaeda associate Ahmed Al-Sharaa.
In the early stages of the new government, tensions with Christian communities have grown, with attacks by Islamic radical groups on the rise, including a terrorist bombing that killed 25 in an Orthodox church in Damascus in June.
Archbishop Adolfo Tito Yllana has only served as apostolic nuncio to Israel and apostolic delegate to Palestine and Jerusalem since 2021, but he’s also 77 years old already.
Considering Yllana’s the region’s volatility, the pope might want him to stay in the Holy Land as long as possible, as he navigates the tensions of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the mounting pressure against Christian communities in the Holy Land, and now the possibility of an elusive peace deal.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza and a proposed peace deal between Israel and Palestine has occupied most of the diplomatic efforts in the first months of Pope Leo’s pontificate. Whether he keeps Yllana longer — or who he appoints as his successor — will be one of Leo’s most closely watched diplomatic appointments.
Nicaragua is not strictly a diplomatic vacancy, since the nunciature there has been closed since 2023, when the Nicaraguan government declared nuncio Archbishop Waldemar Sommertag a persona non grata and forced all Vatican diplomatic personnel to leave the country.
That expulsion signaled the escalation of the regime’s persecution of the Church: since then, more than 20% of Nicaraguan clergy have gone into exile, including three bishops. Bishop Silvio Báez, auxiliary of Managua, has been in exile since 2019.
Moreover, as the situation on the ground worsened and surveillance on clergy intensified, Vatican communication with the local hierarchy has become increasingly difficult.
Finding some way to restore even minimal diplomatic presence on the ground — enough to assess and relay the situation reliably — is now a priority for Pope Leo.
The Holy See has made significant strides in its diplomatic relations with Vietnam, leading up to the appointment of Archbishop Marek Zalewski as non-residential papal representative to Vietnam in 2018, and residential papal representative to Vietnam in 2023, with Zalewski moving to the country in January 2024.
While Catholics were persecuted for decades by the Communist authorities, the Church has slowly but surely made diplomatic progress, with a Vietnam-Holy See Joint Working Group that meets regularly, and the Vietnamese president formally inviting Pope Francis to visit the country in late 2024.
While not formally a vacancy, the main question for Vietnam is whether Pope Leo will be able to finally establish full diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Vietnam and appoint Zalewski as the first nuncio to the country.