By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi, Aug 29, 2020: Pope Francis on August 29 transferred Apostolic Nuncio to India and Nepal Archbishop Giambattista Diquattro to Brazil, South America.
The Vatican has not announced the successor to Archbishop Diquattro, said the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India headquarters in New Delhi.
The outgoing nuncio, who was nominated to India on January 21, 2017, presented his credentials to the Indian president on March 29 and to the Nepal government on June 6 the same year.
The 66-year-old Italian prelate came to India after serving as the apostolic nuncio to Bolivia, also in South America, for nine years.
Archbishop Diquattro was on March 18, 1954, in Bologna, the capital and the largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy.
He was ordained priest on August 24, 1981, for Ragusa diocese in Italy. He was appointed apostolic nuncio to Panama on April 2, 2005, and was made an archbishop on the same day.
He succeeded Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio, who was the Apostolic Nuncio to India and Nepal for six years.
Archbishop Diquattro came to India amid excitement over the news of Pope Francis’ interest in visiting the country.
As he leaves after three years, there is hardly any such talk.
Archbishop Diquattro’s tenure has been a turbulent period for the Church in India. He was criticized for inaction in dealing with scandals involving bishops and priests in India. A laity group had demanded his resignation.
The Vatican has a nunciature in New Delhi while India has accredited its embassy in Bern, Switzerland, to the Holy See as well.
The Vatican-India bilateral relations was formally started on June 12, 1948, nearly a year after India became an independent nation. However, an apostolic delegation existed in India from 1881. The apostolic delegation to the East Indies then included Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and was extended to Malaca in 1889, and then to Burma in 1920.