Who is the Rome Diocese’s new vicar general, future Cardinal Baldassare Reina?

Vatican City, Oct 9, 2024 / 10:30 am

When Pope Francis announced on Oct. 6 that he would create 21 new cardinals later this year, he also gave the Rome Diocese its new vicar general.

As he listed the names of the new cardinals, the pope named “His Excellency Monsignor Baldassare Reina, who will be, from today on, vicar general for the Diocese of Rome.”

From May 2022, Reina has gone from a priest of Agrigento, Sicily, serving in the Dicastery for the Clergy at the Vatican, to an archbishop and cardinal in charge of the diocese of the bishop of Rome — the pope.

Cardinal-designate Bishop Baldassare Reina has been temporarily in charge of the Diocese of Rome in the absence of a vicar general after Pope Francis transferred Cardinal Angelo De Donatis to a post as head of the Vatican’s apostolic penitentiary in April.

Reina, 53, was Rome’s vice regent, the second in command, from January 2023, when the diocese was restructured under a new constitution.

The promotion came less than one year after Reina had been appointed an auxiliary bishop of Rome with responsibility over the “western sector” of the city.

Reina’s background also includes nine years as rector of the major seminary of Agrigento in the southern part of the Italian island of Sicily.

He also taught classes on sacred Scripture at several educational institutions after receiving a master’s-level degree in biblical theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1998.

The archbishop has been a priest for 29 years. He will be made a cardinal on Dec. 8.

In an Oct. 7 letter to Catholics in Rome, Reina wrote that Pope Francis’ “dedication to the universal Church and the prophecy he has given us in these years of pontificate urge me to work for a transparent and poor Church, capable of releasing and spreading the fragrance of the Gospel.”

Now, Pope Francis will need to nominate a vice regent, the figure who assists the cardinal vicar in the management of the diocese, which he has also recently reconfigured.

In an Oct. 1 document published Tuesday by the Diocese of Rome, the pontiff said he had decided to incorporate the central sector of the diocese into the other four sectors.

Francis explained in the motu proprio La Vera Bellezza (“The True Beauty”) that with the exodus of residents from the historic center, the number of Catholic parishes in that geographic zone has dwindled to 35, many with few parishioners. The high influx of tourists has also had an impact on the pastoral needs of the area.

The Diocese of Rome was divided into five sectors with each of the five sectors being divided into prefectures. Now, the five prefectures of the central sector will be part of the northern, eastern, southern, and western sectors.

“In this view, there is no longer an isolated center and a periphery divided into separate parts but, in a dynamic vision that envisions not walls but bridges, the Diocese of Rome will be conceived as a single center expanding through the four cardinal points,” he said.

The pope added that he hopes this change will dissolve “the bilateral tension that has been ingrained in social and ecclesial perception over time between the historic center and the peripheries” of Rome.

He said the Jubilee Year in 2025, more than just an occasion to welcome pilgrims from around the world, should also be a time of pilgrimage for Romans themselves and an opportunity to rediscover the spiritual riches found in the churches and religious traditions in Rome’s city center. 

“I wish to strengthen the unitary and synodal perception of the Diocese of Rome starting from its geographical configuration, so that it can better explicate the authentic sense of its centrality and beauty,” Pope Francis said.