Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Gábor Pintér as the new Apostolic Nuncio to Aotearoa New Zealand. The appointment was announced at 10pm tonight NZ time (noon Saturday in Rome).

A nuncio is the Pope’s chief diplomatic representative in a country, the equivalent of an ambassador.

Archbishop Pintér – who will also serve as Apostolic Delegate to the Pacific Ocean – succeeds Archbishop Novatus Rugambwa, who returned to Rome in March after suffering a stroke last October.

Archbishop Pintér is the present Apostolic Nuncio to Honduras. He was born in Kunszentmarton, Hungary, in 1964 and ordained as a Catholic priest in June 1988. He has a PhD in Theology and a PhD in Canon Law and speaks Hungarian, Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish and Haitian Creole.

He entered the Diplomatic Service of the Holy See in 1996 and served in Haiti, Bolivia, Sweden, France, the Philippines and Austria. before being appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Belarus in 2016.

He was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Honduras in November 2019, coincidentally replacing Archbishop Rugambwa, who was nuncio there until his appointment to New Zealand that year.

Archbishop of Wellington Paul Martin SM, the General Secretary of the NZ Catholic Bishops Conference, says the bishops and people of New Zealand will be delighted to hear of Archbishop Pintér’s appointment.

“We are pleased to have a Nuncio of such experience and we look forward to working with him for the good of the Church in our country and the Pacific and as the connection with the Holy Father,” said Archbishop Martin. “We look forward to welcoming him when he arrives.”

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