Pope Francis has appointed Argentine Archbishop Luis Mariano Montemayor as apostolic nuncio - the pope's representative - to Ireland, the Vatican press office announced on February 25, 2023. Montemayor, who was previously nuncio to Colombia, takes over from the Nigerian Archbishop Jude Thaddeus Okolo, who was transferred to the Czech Republic on May 1. The Pontiff also named Cardinal Arthur Roche a member of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State.
Archbishop Montemayor, born in 1956 in Buenos Aires, was ordained in 1985 and, after studying canon law, joined the 'school of nuncios' in Rome. He joined the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1991 and was sent to work in the papal representations in Ethiopia, Brazil and Thailand.
In 2008, Benedict XVI appointed him nuncio to Senegal and Cape Verde and apostolic delegate to Mauritania. He then received episcopal ordination and was appointed Apostolic Nunciature in Guinea-Bissau.
In 2015, Pope Francis appointed him Apostolic Nuncio to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he remained until 2018 and his appointment to Colombia. In Ireland, he will be the pope's representative in a country where Catholicism, in the past dominant, has been going through a serious crisis for the past decade, especially due to the abuse scandal.
In the same announcement, the Holy See Press Office announced that Pope Francis has appointed Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect of the dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, as a member of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State.
