The longtime Vatican diplomat, who served as apostolic nuncio to Italy and San Marino, was made a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2023.<\/p>\n
VATICAN CITY \u2014 Cardinal Emil Paul Tscherrig, a former apostolic nuncio, died Tuesday at the age of 79. He was born Feb. 3, 1947, in Unterems, Switzerland.<\/p>\n
Tscherrig was ordained a priest on April 11, 1974. He later earned a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University. In 1978, he entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See.<\/p>\n
He served in Uganda, South Korea, Mongolia, and Bangladesh.<\/p>\n
On May 4, 1996, Pope John Paul II appointed him titular archbishop of Voli and apostolic nuncio to Burundi. He was consecrated the following June 27 by then-Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano.<\/p>\n
On July 8, 2000, he was named nuncio to Trinidad and Tobago, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Grenada, Guyana, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the Bahamas, and later also to Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Suriname, and St. Kitts and Nevis.<\/p>\n
On June 22, 2004, he became apostolic nuncio to South Korea and Mongolia.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 26, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him apostolic nuncio to Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Norway.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 5, 2012, he was transferred to lead the apostolic nunciature in Argentina.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 12, 2017, Pope Francis appointed him apostolic nuncio to Italy and San Marino. He was the first non-Italian to hold the post.<\/p>\n
Pope Francis created him a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church at the consistory of Sept. 30, 2023, assigning him the deaconry of San Giuseppe in Via Trionfale.<\/p>\n
On March 11, 2024, Tscherrig stepped down as apostolic nuncio to Italy and San Marino after reaching the age limit. He was succeeded by Archbishop Petar Raji\u010d.<\/p>\n
In May 2025, he took part in the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV.<\/p>\n
At the time of his death, Tscherrig was a member of the cardinalatial commission of the Institute for the Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican bank.<\/p>\n
Pope Leo XIV expressed his \u201cdeep condolences\u201d upon learning of Tscherrig\u2019s death,\u00a0Vatican News<\/a>\u00a0reported. In a telegram, the pope conveyed his thoughts to the cardinal\u2019s family and to the diocesan community of Sion, where Tscherrig was incardinated, and recalled with gratitude his \u201cfaithful service as a papal representative in various countries and later as a member of several dicasteries of the Holy See.\u201d<\/p>\n The pope said the late cardinal \u201cacted generously\u201d and \u201cbore witness to love for the Church and for the successor of Peter.\u201d He entrusted the soul \u201cof this minister of the Gospel\u201d to God, praying that he may \u201cwelcome him into the light that knows no sunset,\u201d and invoked the intercession of the Virgin Mary while sending his apostolic blessing to all those affected \u201cby this sudden loss.\u201d<\/p>\n This story\u00a0was first published<\/a>\u00a0by ACI Stampa, the Italian-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The longtime Vatican diplomat, who served as apostolic nuncio to Italy and San Marino, was made a cardinal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[36045,36046,36047,33632,33633,31022,41,17,36048,36049],"class_list":{"0":"post-66341","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-switzerland","8":"tag-aci-stampa","9":"tag-apostolic-nuncio","10":"tag-cardinal-emil-paul-tscherrig","11":"tag-holy-see","12":"tag-pope-leo-xiv","13":"tag-pope-francis","14":"tag-swiss","15":"tag-switzerland","16":"tag-vatican-diplomat","17":"tag-vatican-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116583574084767685","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}