New Substitute 'deeply honoured' by appointment

Read also 30/03/2026 Pope appoints new Substitute, Nuncio to Italy, and Prefect of Papal Household Pope Leo XIV makes three significant appointments: Archbishop Paolo Rudelli, Apostolic Nuncio to Colombia, takes the place of Substitute for General Affairs Archbishop Edgar Peña ...

Vatican News

Archbishop Paolo Rudelli, appointed today, March 30, by Pope Leo XIV as the new Substitute of the Secretariat of State, has said that “The Holy Father Leo’s call to collaborate closely in the exercise of his supreme mission ... is a gesture of unmerited trust, which deeply honors me.”

The Archbishop said he was invoking “divine help” and would entrust himself “especially to the intercession of St. John XXIII,” a 20th-century Pope who, like him, hailed from the northern Italian region of Bergamo.

A former Nuncio to Colombia, Archbishop Rudelli replaces the Venezuelan Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, who has been appointed Nuncio to Italy and the Republic of San Marino, succeeding Archbishop Petar Rajič.

“Animated by faith in the Ministry of the Successor of the Apostle Peter,” the new Substitute says he is preparing to “undertake this service in the spirit indicated by the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate evangelium,” and with the awareness of “being able to rely on the guidance of the Cardinal Secretary of State and the collaboration of the Assessor and all the staff at the Section for General Affairs.”