Catholic Archbishop Appointed Secretary of Vatican Dicastery

March 19, 2023266 views0

Catholic Archbishop Appointed Secretary of Vatican Dicastery

2023-03-19T09:38:17+01:00

By Church News

Nigerian Catholic Archbishop, Fortunatus Nwachukwu has been appointed by Pope Francis as Secretary of the Dicastery for Evangelization, the Vatican section for the first evangelization and the new particular Churches that “serves the work of evangelization, so that Christ, the light of the nations, may be known and witnessed to by word and deed, and the Church, his mystical Body, may be built up.”The appointment of the Nigerian-born Archbishop who has been serving as the Apostolic Nuncio to the United Nations Office and Specialized Agencies in Geneva since his appointment in December 2021 was made public by the Holy See Press office on Wednesday, March 15.Archbishop Nwachukwu also served at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and as the Holy See Representative at the International Organization for Migration (IOM).Born in May 1960 in Umuokoro, Eziama-Ntigha, in Isia-Ala Ngwa North Local Government Area of Aba State, Archbishop Nwachukwu was ordained a Priest of the Catholic Diocese of Umuahia in June 1984; he was incardinated in Aba Diocese in April 1990.After his Priestly ordination, he worked as a teacher and later as Vice-rector of the Immaculate Conception Seminary, Umuahia, as well as Parochial Vicar and Administrator of St Anne’s Parish, Ibeku (1984-1986).The Catholic Archbishop also served as the Diocesan Vocations Director, as well as Chaplain of the Federal College of Agriculture and the Umuahia Campus of Alvan Ikoku College of Education, both in Umudike-Umuahia.He was enrolled in the diplomatic service of the Holy See on 1 July 1994 and was later deployed to Apostolic Nuntiatures including Ghana and Paraguay.The Vatican diplomat is an alumnus of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome where he completed his doctoral studies in Canon Law in 1996.In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him as the Apostolic Nuncio to Nicaragua, and assigned him the Titular Archbishop of Acquaviva.He later served in the Antilles from 2017 as the Apostolic Nuncio to Trinidad and Tobago, as well as to Barbados, Dominica, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, and Guyana.ALSO READ: Mexican Nun Shares How Christians Live in Sudan