Pope Francis has appointed His Excellency Archbishop Miguel Maury Buendía as Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, welcomed the news.
“On behalf of our Bishops’ Conference, I assure him not only of our warm welcome but also of our full cooperation when he takes up these new responsibilities,” he said.
Born in Madrid on November 19 1955, Archbishop Maury Buendía studied philosophy and theology at the Conciliar Seminary of Madrid before being ordained a priest for the Archdiocese in 1980.
He followed a two-year program of studies at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome, and entered the Holy See’s diplomatic service in July 1987, serving in diplomatic missions in countries including Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco, Nicaragua, Egypt, Slovenia and Ireland.
In 2004, he was called to the Section for Relations with States within the Secretariat of State of the Holy See.
Four years later, he was appointed titular Archbishop of Italica and Apostolic Nuncio to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Pope Francis appointed him Apostolic Nuncio to Romania in 2015, and to the Republic of Moldova in 2016.
His appointed as Apostolic Nuncio to the Court of St James’s fills a post vacant since the previous Nuncio to Great Britain, Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, was named prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches last November.