Pope Francis on August 15, 2018, appointed Msgr. Edgar Peña Parra, Titular Archbishop of Telepte, until now Apostolic Nuncio in Mozambique, as Substitute for General Affairs of the Secretary of State.
This appointment was announced in a bulletin this morning, noting this will go into effect on October 15.
Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela, on March 6, 1960. With the presbyteral ordination, which took place on August 23, 1985, he was incardinated in the Diocese of Maracaibo. Having graduated in Canon Law, he entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See on April 1, 1993, and subsequently worked diplomatically for the Holy See in Kenya, Yugoslavia, the United Nations Office in Geneva, and the Apostolic Nunciatures in South Africa, Honduras and Mexico. Appointed titular Archbishop of Telepte on January 8, 2011, he received episcopal ordination on February 5, 2011, holding the office of Apostolic Nuncio in Pakistan from 2001 to 2014 and Apostolic Nuncio in Mozambique from February 21, 2015.
He knows Spanish, Italian, English, French, Portuguese and Serbo-Croatian.
The Venezuelan archbishop succeeds Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, who had been serving as the Substitute. Pope Francis on May 26, 2018, appointed Becciu, who was among the newly-created cardinals at the June 29 consistory, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
