Vatican City: Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai as the new apostolic nuncio to Greece. The Hong Kong prelate was the secretary of the Congregation of Peoples until now.
He has been entrusted with a nunciature leadership, although he has never held positions linked to the Vatican diplomatic service, reports Vatican Insider.
Savio Hon, a Salesian, was born in Hong Kong on October 21, 1950. He came to Rome in 2010, to take up the post of secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Prior to the pontifical nomination, he was professor of Theology at the Seminary of Hong Kong.
Hon worked as a teaching and visiting professor at various seminaries in China, he has been a member of the International Theological Commission that has overseen the translation
Upon his arrival in Rome, some media had referred to Savio Hon as the “new strategist” of the Vatican on China. He inspired the blog “Being Catholic in China”, which issued an online handbook with questions and answers on the canonical consequences of Chinese illegitimate episcopal ordinations.
After a stalemate, during 2010-2011 by 3 episcopal ordinations celebrated in China without pontifical mandate, from 2014 onwards the Holy See has taken up the path that had been indicated in Pope Benedict XVI’s letter to Chinese Catholics, and reopened channels of dialogue with the People’s Republic of China, also reactivating the search for “an agreement with the government to resolve some issues concerning the choice of candidates for the episcopate.”
From June to October 2016, Hon had also taken on the position of Apostolic Administrator “sede plena” of the Agana archdiocese in Guam, tasked with dealing with the serious internal problems of that diocese, linked to accusations of sexual harassment against Bishop Anthony Sablan Apuron.
With the appointment of Savio Hon as nuncio, the office of Secretary of Propaganda Fide remains temporarily vacant. At the same time, Pope Francis has appointed Ryszard Szmydki sub-secretary of the same missionary department. That office had also been vacant since last April12, when the then Under-Secretary Tadeusz Wojda was nominated Metropolitan Archbishop of Bialystok, Poland.