Article originally published on https://www.acistampa.com/story/33451/un-nuovo-ambra-del-papa- i n-israele-e-palestina
A new “Pope’s ambassador” to Israel. Archbishop Adolfo Tito Camacho retires. Ylllana, who was about to turn 78 and had been nuncio to Israel since 2021. In his place comes Archbishop Giorgio Lingua, directly from the nunciature of Croatia, where he had served as the Pope’s “ambassador” since 2022.
Leo XIV, therefore, chose an experienced diplomat as apostolic nuncio to Israel and apostolic delegate to Jerusalem and Palestine, one who knows the Middle East well, having served as nuncio to Iraq and Jordan from 2010 to 2015. At the time, the nunciature in Baghdad included that of Jordan. This latter nunciature now also has a seat in Cyprus, a territory that, until 2023, was assigned to the representation in Israel.
Lingua, therefore, comes at a complex time for relations between the Holy See and Israel, so much so that neither Israeli President Isaac Herzog nor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended Pope Francis’s funeral. Herzog, however, did have an audience with Leo XIV on September 4th.
In Israel, the Catholic Church has always been at the forefront of supporting the population and engaging in peace talks. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, has been to Gaza several times during the crisis, and his voice for peace has resounded repeatedly .
Archbishop Lingua, however, is no stranger to complex situations. Born in Alba, Piedmont, in 1960, and ordained a priest in 1984, Lingua entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1992.
He worked in the papal representations of Ivory Coast, the United States, Italy and Serbia .
In 2010, he was appointed apostolic nuncio to Iraq/Jordan, when the two countries still had only one diplomatic representative, while from 2015 to 2022, he was nuncio to Cuba.
Camacho Yllana, a Filipino, is retiring. Yllana had been in the diplomatic service of the Holy See since the 1970s, and had been nuncio since 2001, serving in Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Australia, and finally Israel and Cyprus.
The appointment of a new nuncio to Israel opens the domino effect of a number of important nunciatures that will become vacant because their current incumbents are reaching retirement age: Cardinal Mario Zenari, nuncio to Syria, has already turned 80, while Cardinal Christophe Pierre, nuncio to the United States, will turn 80 on January 30th and will celebrate with a reception in which Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, substitute of the Secretariat of State, is also expected to participate.