The Pope accepted the request of Cardinal Bassetti, the outgoing president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, to resign as the pastor of the Archdiocese of Umbria, and appointed two priests and a seminarian as auxiliary bishops of the diocese of Rome.
(Vatican News Network)Card Gualtiero Bassetti, 80, also resigned from his role as head of the archdiocese of Perugia three days after ending his term as president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference. In July 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Archbishop of the archdiocese. Pope Francis accepted Card Bassetti’s resignation on May 27 and appointed three new auxiliary bishops for the diocese of Rome.
The three new bishops are: Fr Riccardo Lamba, priest of Rome, who is until now the parish priest of the parish of St. Ponzian. The other was also a Roman cleric, Father Daniele Salera. Before his appointment, he was the parish priest of the parish of St. Flemish. Along with them, the Pope also appointed as auxiliary bishop Fr Baldassarre Reina, priest of the archdiocese of Agrigento in Sicily, who had previously served as rector of the archdiocese’s major seminary.
Bishop Lamba, a 65-year-old graduate of the Faculty of Medicine, was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and was ordained a priest in Rome in 1986. He holds a BA and MA in Psychology from the Pontifical Gregorian University. From 1991 to 2000, he worked as a teaching assistant in the Faculty of Medicine of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, and later served as a priest in three different parishes.
Bishop Salera, 52, was born in Rome and was ordained a priest there in 2002. He has a degree in sociology and a master’s degree in spiritual theology. Among the different positions he held, in addition to the pastoral ministry of the parish priest, he was also a teacher of religious studies and vice-president of the Pontifical Roman Seminary.
New Auxiliary Bishop Reina was born 52 years ago in Agrigento, Sicily. He was ordained a priest in 1995 after completing his theology course. He obtained a degree in Biblical Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1998. He served as a parish priest in different parishes, and in addition to being the rector of the Agrigento Seminary, he was also a professor of biblical studies.
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