Pope Leo XIV is continuing to build out his administration, and today, March 30, the Vatican announced two handpicked appointments to key positions. He has also reassigned his former chief of staff as nuncio to Italy.

The pope has chosen an Italian Holy See diplomat, Archbishop Paolo Rudelli, 55, for the crucial role of chief of staff; the official title for the post is “substitute” in the Secretariat of State.

He succeeds the Venezuela-born archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, 66, who has served in this post since August 2018, and whom Pope Leo has appointed as the new nuncio to Italy and the Republic of San Marino.

As substitute, Archbishop Rudelli becomes the third-ranking official in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. He will head the first of its three units: the Section for General Affairs. As the apostolic constitution “Praedicate Evangelium” explains, this section “is responsible in a particular way for expediting matters involving the day-to-day service of the Roman Pontiff; examining matters needing to be dealt with outside of the ordinary competence of the institutions of the Curia and the other agencies of the Apostolic See; and fostering cooperation among the Dicasteries, agencies and offices without prejudice to their autonomy” (Nos. 46-48). It also deals with all matters concerning the representatives of states to the Holy See.

The Section for General Affairs—often referred to as the First Section—is furthermore responsible “for drawing up and dispatching apostolic constitutions, decretal letters, apostolic letters, epistles, and other documents entrusted to it by the Roman Pontiff” and “for preparing for publication the acts and public documents of the Holy See.”

Archbishop Rudelli was born in Gazzaniga, Italy, on July 16, 1970, and was ordained a priest in June 1995 for the Diocese of Bergamo. He studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and gained a licentiate in canon law and a degree in moral theology. He is fluent in English, French, Spanish and Polish.

He entered the Holy See’s diplomatic service in 2001. He served in its diplomatic missions in Ecuador and in Poland before being recalled to the Vatican to work in the Section for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State (2006-14), the section he now leads. In 2014, Archbishop Rudelli was appointed to serve as the Holy See’s permanent observer at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Pope Francis first nominated him as archbishop in 2019 and sent him as nuncio to Zimbabwe in January 2020; he was reassigned as nuncio to Colombia in 2023. 

The Italian archbishop now returns to the Vatican to take up this critical role, where he will work very closely with the first American pope, having gained considerable diplomatic experience on three continents. A former nuncio who knows him well, but did not wish to be identified, described Archbishop Rudellia as “a good, serious and kind man” and “well suited for this role.” He will be assisted by the Nigerian-born assessor, Msgr. Anthony Onyemuche Ekpo, whom Pope Leo appointed to that post last November.

His predecessor, Archbishop Peña Parra, in a farewell address to the staff in the Secretariat of State this morning, recalled his seven years leading its Section for General Affairs. The text was made available to the Vatican press corps.

“At times,” he said, “these past years have been extremely difficult. We weathered the global trial of the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted the world, including our Leonine walls. We experienced sorrow over the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and reverently participated in his funeral. We shared the anguish brought about by the illness of Pope Francis, and later lived through his death and funeral, which moved the entire world. With a sense of responsibility and ecclesial spirit, we participated in the delicate phases leading up to the Conclave, which culminated in the joyful election of Pope Leo XIV, who was welcomed as a gift of the Spirit to the Church.”

He also alluded to the more controversial moments in the Secretariat of State that led to “the trial of the century,” in which his predecessor as substitute, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, was found guilty. “There were also moments of institutional suffering, such as the legal proceedings related to the London Palace affair, which exposed the Holy See—and in particular our Secretariat of State—to unprecedented media and judicial scrutiny, requiring rigor, transparency, and a sense of responsibility on our part,” Archbishop Peña Parras acknowledged. “In each of these circumstances, the Section for General Affairs was called upon to safeguard, coordinate and sustain a service that is quiet, often invisible, yet essential to the life of the universal Church.”

The Papal Household

In another significant decision also announced by the Vatican today, Pope Leo has appointed the Canadian-born Holy See diplomat Archbishop Petar Rajič, 66, as the prefect of the papal household. The role was previously held by Archbishop Georg Gänswein from 2012 to 2020, when Pope Francis decided that the archbishop should devote his full time to care for the aging emeritus pope, Benedict XVI.

Archbishop Rajič was born in Toronto to immigrant parents of Croatian origin. After entering the Holy See’s diplomatic corps in 1993, he served in its missions in Iran and Lithuania before being called to work in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. Pope Benedict named him archbishop in 2009 and sent him as nuncio to Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, as well as apostolic delegate to the Arabian Peninsula. In 2010, he named him as nuncio to Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. In 2015, Pope Francis appointed him as nuncio to Angola and São Tomé and Príncipe, then in 2019 sent him as nuncio to Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia (countries now covered by his predecessor Archbishop Gänswein). Then, in March 2024, Francis appointed him as nuncio to Italy and the Republic of San Marino, the position that will now be taken by Archbishop Peña Parra. Archbishop Rajič is fluent in English, Croatian, French, Italian and Portuguese.

As prefect, he will head the Prefecture of the Papal Household, which, according to “Praedicate Evangelium,” “is responsible for the internal organization of the Papal Household and supervises whatever concerns the conduct and service of all who make up the Papal Chapel and the Papal Family” (Nos. 228-230). He is assisted by a regent, currently the Italian monsignor Leonardo Sapienza, and by a vice regent, the Nigerian Augustinian priest Edward Daniang Daleng, O.S.A., who is expected to take over as regent when the Italian retires.

According to the constitution, the prefecture “sees to the planning and execution, apart from their strictly liturgical aspect, of papal ceremonies.” It also organizes the pope’s audiences and makes the necessary arrangements when heads of state or government and other dignitaries, including ambassadors, are received by the pope in audience. As prefect, Archbishop Rajič takes up a demanding but essential position to ensure order for the pope’s daily engagements.