The Vatican reported that Pope Leo XIV has appointed the priest Daniel Palau as the new bishop of Lleida (Spain). Mons. Salvador Giménez Valls will happen, who presented his resignation in 2023 for age reasons.
This is the first episcopal appointment for Spain since the beginning of the Pontificate of Leo XIV, who until his choice exercised as a prefect of the dicas supplies for the bishops.
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P. Palau was born in 1972 in Barcelona and has a degree in Geography and History, specializing in art history from the University of Barcelona. At the end of his university studies, he entered the Conciliar Seminar in Barcelona in 1996 and was ordered priest in 2003.
In the following years he obtained grades in philosophy and dogmatic theology, a specialty in which he obtained a doctorate after studying at the Gregorian University of Rome between 2008 and 2013.
In the Diocese of San Feliú de Llobregat he developed his pastoral work since 2003 in various parishes. He has been a teacher at the Faculty of theology of the Sant Pacià University Ateneo, of which he has been dean since last January.
Mons. Giménez Valls has been a bishop of Lleida during the last 10 years and, after the episcopal ordination of his successor, will go to the condition of emeritus. Born and formed in the Archdiocese of Valencia, he was ordered priest in 1973.
In 2005 he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Valencia, a performance he performed until 2008, when he was appointed Diocesan Administrator of Mallorca, diocese to which he joined as a residential bishop in 2009. There he developed his apostolic work until he was transferred to Lérida in 2015.
A small diocese in the Pyrenees
The diocese of Lleida is loud of the archbishopric of Tarragona and is located northwest of Spain, covering a strip of the Catalan Pyrenees. It has 216 parishes and 81 diocesan priests, of which 48 are already retired. In addition, there are 20 religious priests and 8 permanent deacons.
According to Spanish Episcopal Conference datain 2023 they could only hold a priestly ordination and in this course there is another major seminarian.
With figures updated to January 2024, 358 baptisms, 394 first communions, 224 confirmations and 79 marriages were held, in a population of more than 240,000 people.
The diocese has More than a hundred saints and blessedmost of them martyred during religious persecution between 1936 and 1939
Until the closing of this information, the date or place where the episcopal ordination of P. Palau or its inauguration of the Diocese of Lleida will not be completed.
Nicolás de Cárdenas
Born in 1980, I am a Spanish and journalist’s husband and father with more than 20 years of experience in print and digital media, specialized in socio -political and religious information. I have worked more than 10 years in defense of human rights and I have accreditations in journalism and comprehensive communication. Since July 2022, I am a correspondent for ACI Press and Ewtn News in Spain, covering international events of the Catholic Church.