Fr Leonard Dollentas
On September 28, 2020 the Vatican announced that Pope Francis has named Archbishop Charles J Brown as the new nuncio to the Philippines. The 61-year-old prelate is a native of New York. He was the Vatican’s diplomatic representative in Albania, a ministry he handled since March 2017, until he received his new mission in the Philippines. Archbishop Brown has also served as the papal nuncio to Ireland where he tackled a particularly delicate moment in Vatican-Irish relations in which the Vatican was criticized by a number of Irish-government officials and others on the Vatican’s handling of clerical abuse in that country.
The new Nuncio to the Philippines has also worked at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1994 to 2011. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger headed this congregation from 1981 until his election as Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. Magr Brown became a Chaplain of His Holiness on 6 May 2000.
Papal Nuncios are the pope’s representative to the church in their assigned country as well as the diplomatic representative of the Holy See to the government of their host country. Archbishop Brown has succeeded Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia, who was appointed by Pope Francis as permanent observer to the United Nations in November 2019.
Archbishop Brown graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in history in 1981. He holds graduate degrees in theology from Oxford University, in medieval studies from the University of Toronto and in sacramental theology from the Pontifical University of Sant’Anselmo in Rome.
He was ordained a priest in 1989 in St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and served from 1989 to 1991 as assistant priest at St Brendan’s Parish in the Bronx, New York City.
Filipinos are hopeful that the new Papal Nuncio will bring courage to the Filipinos and would bridge a more dynamic unity between the Philippine government and the Church. Recently, Philippine government officials have been asking for the Church’s help in addressing rising cases of suicide and depression of a number its citizens due to the surging effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
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