New nuncio Piero Pioppo’s reference to Cardinal Luigi Dadaglio during his first public celebration in Spain – at the Mass of the Immaculate Conception last Monday – was not an innocent gesture. Dadaglio, nuncio between 1967 and 1980, was the architect, with the cardinal … Tarancon, of the renewal of a Church which I was going through the last throes of Francoism towards a promising Transition. Pioppo, whom Dadaglio himself encouraged to enter Vatican diplomacy, now arrives in Spain with a task that will mark the next decade: reconfiguring the Spanish episcopate.
The first months will be decisive. Pioppo must provide at least ten episcopal appointments, four for vacant dioceses and six more for those awaiting relief after submitting their resignation at the age of 75. Added to this urgency are other no less external fronts: preparing for Léon’s more than likely first trip. And all this, with the unknown, which is already beginning to become clearer, on who will be your “dance partner” within the Spanish Churchthe current equivalent of this Tarancón who accompanied his mentor Dadaglio.
The situation that Pioppo inherits is the result of years of blockages. The mandate of his predecessor, Bernardito Auza, was marked by accusations, from the most Franciscan sector, according to which he had only promoted conservative candidates to the episcopate. It happened later THE “an unusual commission to help the nuncio” imposed from Rome — which further slowed down the processes — and the subsequent direct intervention of the Pope by incorporating Cardinal José Cobo and the then Bishop of Teruel, José Antonio Satué, into the Dicastery for Bishops, which is essential since the so-called “bishops factory” is responsible for filtering the shortlists of candidates that arrive from the nunciatures. This stage ended with Auza’s hasty departure from Spain, decided during Francisco’s hospitalization, after several weeks of media attrition from sectors linked to the most progressive Church.
It is on this changing terrain that Pioppo must now operate. But the context is different. The Pope is no longer Francis, but Leo XIV. A Pontiff who knows first-hand the tensions of the process – he experienced them, even suffered them, as prefect of the Dicastery – and who, in his first decisions, clearly expressed his intention to regain canonical normality and promote internal communion. In this context, it is not surprising that the new nuncio was received in audience by Leo XIV on November 24, a few days before his arrival in Madrid.
Even if, obviously, the Pope’s instructions have not been transposed, his first decisions help to interpret the road map: scrupulous respect for procedure, end of interference and farewell to the practice of prolonging charges beyond the canonical age. A few weeks ago, Leo
Leo XIV commits to respecting the procedure and putting an end to extensions beyond the canonical age
This clarity directly affects Spain. Four dioceses are vacant —Astorga, Teruel-Albarracín, Osma-Soria and Cádiz-Ceuta— and six others must be renewed: Barcelona, Cuenca, Mallorca, Cartagena-Murcia, Tarrasa and Segorbe-Castellón. Some have been waiting for years. The most striking case is that of Cardinal Omella, who presented his resignation in 2020 and will be 80 years old in April and will leave Cobo as the only Spanish cardinal elector. Unless Leo XIV remedies this with new appointments.
Francis was inclined to extend the mandates, especially with bishops he trusted, as happened in Spain, besides Omella, with the bishop of Cuenca, José María Yanguas, who is already 78 years old, and that of Mallorca, Sebastià Taltavull, who will end them in January. Leo XIV does not want to do it. Replacement should be done soon. And Pioppo must apply the ordinary procedure: receive the proposals of candidates from the ecclesiastical provinces, request confidential reports to other bishops, religious and lay, and prepare shortlists to send to Rome, where the candidate will receive final validation from the Pope.
In a few months
A process which is not really fast, but which will have to be carried out next year and which, barring unforeseen circumstances, will not be repeated until 2028. It turns out that in 2026 and 2027 no Spanish bishop will reach the age of 75. Thus, the episcopate of the next decade will be implemented in a few months. And with it, the orientation of the Episcopal Conference, because these ten names, out of a total of approximately eighty active bishops, can modify the balance or reaffirm the current positions.
Last November, in his inaugural address to the plenary assembly, Luis Argüello asked the bishops to stop debating “on the division between “progressives” and “conservatives”» to strengthen their communion. A year earlier, when he was elected president, both sensibilities were represented by him and José Cobo. Argüello was elected president in the first vote with broad support, 48 votes out of a possible 78, or a comfortable 61.53%. Cobo became vice president in the second vote, with a slim majority of 39 votes. A situation which did not please this minority sector, which had the sympathy of Pope Francis. Cobo then received the commission from the Vatican to change the balance point and, indeed, the appointments that were made from then on had a marked social profile.
But the death of the pope changed the situation. In recent months, Cobo adopted a more reserved profilealso conditioned by personal circumstances, such as the unexpected and sudden death of one of his auxiliary bishops, José Antonio Álvarez, and the concern about the situation of a priest of the diocese, to whom he is linked by friendship, of whom a video circulates in which he recounts, in a humorous show, how he met “his boy” in a gay orgy. While, Argüello seems to have regained its institutional weight who corresponds to the president of the Episcopal Conference, favored by the proximity he had already established with the then Cardinal Prévost during the Synod. The facts will demonstrate who is now “the Pope’s man in Spain”, but if non-verbal language serves as a clue, just look at the faces of the bishops who went to receive the nuncio at the airport on the day of his arrival in Spain.
Papal trip to Spain in 2026
Meanwhile, Pioppo faces another immediate task: preparing Leo “You can have more than hope,” Leo XIV replied to reporters when they asked him about this possibility. The truth is that internally it’s taken for granted for the coming year and all that remains is to decide which places you will visit. Madrid and Barcelona are considered safe, the latter on the occasion of the centenary of Gaudí’s death and the completion of work on the Sagrada Familia. In addition, the nuncio must design an itinerary that combines logistical possibilities, expectations and invitations.
But his diplomatic mission does not stop with organizing the trip. The nonce must reestablish a stable channel between the Spanish State and the Holy Seedeteriorated by the government’s practice of speaking directly to the Pope or Secretary of State on sensitive issues, from the resignification of the Valley of the Fallen to the question of compensation for abuse. Restoring this balance will be one of its biggest challenges.
Like Dadaglio, Piero Pioppo arrived in Spain at a time of transition and, faced with a government hostile to ecclesiastical and an episcopate in waiting facing new points of balancewill have the obligation to draw the profile of the Spanish Church for the next decade.
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