Religion

American-Born Pope Leo XVI Appoints New Personal Representative To Home Country

Judgefloro, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Pope Leo XIV on Saturday appointed Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia as his apostolic nuncio and personal representative to the United States, his latest move to reshape the relationship between the Vatican and his home country.

The Italian-born Caccia, 68, who since January 2020 served as the Holy See’s permanent observer at the United Nations in New York, said he was “honored and deeply humbled by the decision of the Holy Father” to be appointed “to the Country and the Church” which raised the first American pope, according to Vatican News.

“I receive this mission with both joy and a sense of trepidation,” Caccia reportedly admitted. He went on to describe his new ministry as a “mission at the service of communion and peace.” The appointment coincides with the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.

Pope Leo appoints Archbishop Gabriele Caccia – Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations since 2019 – as Apostolic Nuncio to the United States.https://t.co/DKQZ1vBrwa

— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) March 7, 2026

Reflecting how his service in New York connected him with the local people, institutions, and churches of the U.S, Caccia stated he was “encouraged by the warmth and openness” they extended.

Ordained a priest in 1983, Caccia joined the Diplomatic Service of the Holy See in 1991 and supported its efforts in Tanzania. After serving in the Section for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State beginning 1993, he was appointed to the key administrative post of assessor for general affairs of the Secretariat of State in 2002. He served as Pope Benedict XVI’s apostolic nuncio to Lebanon in July 2009 and as Pope Francis’s apostolic nuncio to the Philippines in September 2017.

Caccia’s appointment will involve maintaining balance and relationships between the Holy See, the White House, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). He will also report on the political and ecclesiastical developments of the U.S. to the Vatican, and play a key role in the selection of the nation’s bishops by the Holy Father, who himself served as the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in Rome.

“It is with joy that I welcome the news that our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, has appointed as his personal representative and nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Caccia,” Archbishop Paul Coakley, the president of the USCCB, stated. “On behalf of my brother bishops, I wish to extend our warmest welcome and our prayerful support to him as he carries out his responsibilities across the United States, and we look forward to working with him.”

As the Holy See’s delegate to the UN, Caccia’s public statements appear to have been characteristically diplomatic, focusing on global issues pertaining to peace, disarmament, human dignity, multilateralism, and sustainable development. In this way, he has avoided directly commenting on policies or positions expressed by the administration of President Donald Trump. His new appointment, however, may change this dynamic.

Denying characterizations that the Vatican might be “anti-America,” U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Brian Burch observed during an interview with EWTN that “the common things that the Vatican and the Holy See in the United States share go much beyond the political framing that I think a lot of people want to interpret.”

Burch, who was involved in failed Vatican efforts for Venezuela dictator Nicolás Maduro to leave power peacefully ahead of the Jan. 3 raid by U.S. law enforcement, went on to recall a comment one of the highest-ranking cardinals.

“He said, ‘When we deal with a lot of these difficult issues, often we don’t always know what the answers are. One of the things we often come back to is we need to talk to the United States.’ It’s not because we have the perfect answer to every question, but it’s because we share this Western civilizational idea that we inherited, again, as the secretary recently said, from Europe, but also that the Holy See, United States share this common bond about truth and justice and human dignity and fundamental understanding of freedom,” the ambassador stated.

“I think this Pope in particular is going to be very careful to not come across as an American who’s meddling in politics. And, in fact, he said that directly to me when I met him,” he continued. “This Pope, he said to me when I first met him, ‘I don’t want to be seen as an American who’s trying to meddle in the domestic political fights in the United States.’ He said, ‘I’m not an American Pope. I’m a Pope from America for the world.'”

Caccia replaces the veteran French-born diplomat Cardinal Christophe Pierre, whose resignation was offered as required upon reaching the age of 80 on Jan. 30. Pierre served as apostolic nuncio to the U.S. since April 2016, after serving as the representative of Pope John Paul II to Uganda and Haiti, and of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico.

Pierre reflected on his decade in the U.S. as “very beautiful years, difficult years,” noting during an interview with EWTN that “these years have been full of tensions at times.”

“The mission of the Church is precisely not to reproduce in our Church the polarization of the society but to be a kind of place where we can heal, you know, and help the people to rediscover [a] kind of unity,” he continued. “At times we forget about that and … we became … cultural warriors. So that means instead of contemplating Christ in my life, in your life, and trying to get together, we remain at the level of ideas. So if you don’t agree with me you become my enemy or I become your enemy. And I think it’s very dangerous.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to His Eminence and the White House for comment.

Pierre himself was appointed by Pope Francis to replace Italian-born Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who served as nuncio to the U.S. from 2011 to 2016. Viganò was excommunicated July 5, 2024, by the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith for committing the crime of schism. He was found guilty of refusing to recognize the authority of Pope Francis, rejecting the Second Vatican Council, and publicly expressing defiance against the Church.

Since his May 2026 election, Pope Leo XVI has appointed 10 clerics to be bishops in the U.S., with his December replacement of longtime New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan being the most prominent. His Holiness has not publicly expressed any plans to make an official visit to his home country, for the time being participating in a selection of virtual engagements.