Pope Leo XIV confirmed to the Brazilian archbishop Ilson de Jesús Montanari as secretary of Dicastery for Bishops in the Vatican, for a period of five years, in order to collaborate with the mission of the new prefect, the Italian archbishop Filippo Iannone.
The dicas supplies for bishops has as one of its main responsibilities to collaborate with the Pope to choose bishops worldwide. Until before his choice as a successor of San Pedro, he was in charge of the now Pope Leo XIV.
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The Secretary of Dicastery for Bishops
Mons. Montanari worked as an officer of the Dicasteria between 2008 and 2013, the year in which he was appointed secretary of the same by Pope Francis, who assigned the dignity of Archbishop. He received the episcopal consecration on November 7, 2013. He was confirmed in office in October 2018.
The Argentine Pontiff also appointed him Secretary of the Cardinal College on January 28, 2014 y ViceCamerlengo of the Holy Roman Church on May 1, 2020to collaborate with Cardinal Camarlengo Kevin Joseph Farrell, in the mission of caring for and administering the temporary goods and rights of the Holy See during the vacancy and verifying the death of the Pontiff.
As secretary of the Cardinal College he participated in the conclave that in May of this year he chose Pope Leo XIV, being responsible for registering the minutes, the number of votes and the final act of the papal election.
In June 2022 he was appointed member of the Congregation – today Dicastery – for the divine cult and discipline of the sacraments.
Ilson de Jesús Montanari was born on July 18, 1959 in Setãozinho, state of São Paulo. He is 66 years old.
He studied at the Adelino Fortunate Simioni School (1965-1969) in Sertãozinho, did high school at the Dr. Antônio Furlan Jr.
He obtained the Bachelor of Philosophy at the Center for Studies of the Archdiocese of Ribeirão Preto, and the Bachelor of Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome (1985-1988). He was ordained a priest on August 18, 1989.
He was a professor of theology at the Center for the Archdiocese of Ribeirão Preto and in the Archidiocesan Seminary of Uberba (1990-1994); Foreign Minister and Pastoral Coordinator of the Archdiocese of Ribeirão Preto (1993-2002). He obtained the degree in Dogmatic Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University (2002-2004).
He was appointed chaplain of his holiness in 2011.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.