Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo to head Vatican City State and the Governorate

(23 June 2006) : Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, Secretary for Relations with States, will be the new president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State and of the governorate. Pope Benedict XVI made the new appointment on Thursday which will be effective September 15. The 71 year-old Italian prelate will replace 78 year-old U.S. Cardinal Edmund Szoka. Cardinal Szoka, an American prelate of Polish ancestry, who was one of the closest collaborators of Pope John Paul II, will be stepping down for reasons of age just after his 79th birthday. Born in Novara, Italy, in 1935, Archbishop Lajolo was ordained in 1960 and entered the Vatican diplomatic service in 1970. He served as secretary of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See from 1988 to 1995, then as apostolic nuncio to Germany, before assuming his current post in 2003.