Faustino Sainz Muñoz

infobox bishopstyles
name=Faustino Sainz Muñoz
dipstyle=The Most Reverend
offstyle=Your Excellency
relstyle=Monsignor
deathstyle=not applicable |

Faustino Sainz Muñoz (born June 5, 1937) is a Spanish prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He currently serves as Nuncio to Great Britain, having been appointed by Pope John Paul II in 2004.

Biography

Born in Almadén, Faustino Sainz Muñoz was ordained to the priesthood on December 19, 1964. He entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1970, serving in the Pontifical Representations in Senegal and Scandinavia, and then in the Council of Public Affairs of the Church of the Vatican Secretariat of State. As a junior diplomat in Finland, he was dispatched as part of the Holy See's delegation to the preparatory talks of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in 1975; the delegation diligently ensured that religious freedom was included in the Helsinki Accords. Upon his returning to the Vatican that same year, Sainz was made the Holy See’s liaison with Poland, Hungary, and later the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.

He traveled to Latin America in 1978, where he accompanied Antonio Cardinal Samoré in successfully averting war between Chile and Argentina over the Beagle conflict [Diplomat Magazine. [http://diplomatmagazine.com/php/biographies/holy_see.php His Excellency Archbishop Faustino Sainz Munoz, the Apostolic Nuncio] July/August 2005] [TIME Magazine. [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920046,00.html War Averted] January 22, 1979] . Sainz, who accompanied Pope John Paul on his visit to his native Poland in June 1979, describes the crowd's applause during the Pope's homily at a Mass on Victory Square in Warsaw as “an image that [he] cannot forget...it was the beginning of the end of Communism in Poland” [Diplomat Magazine. [http://diplomatmagazine.com/php/biographies/holy_see.php His Excellency Archbishop Faustino Sainz Munoz, the Apostolic Nuncio] July/August 2005] .

On October 29, 1988, he was appointed Pro-Nuncio to Cuba and Titular Archbishop of "Novaliciana" by John Paul. Sainz received his episcopal consecration on the following December 18 (a day before his twenty-fourth anniversary of priestly ordination) from Agostino Cardinal Casaroli, with Ángel Cardinal Suquía Goicoechea and Archbishop Maximino Romero de Lema serving as co-consecrators. While in this post, he held many discussions with Fidel Castro about episcopal cooperation in improving the position of the Cuban Church and the welfare of the Cuban people [Ibid.] .

Sainz was later named Nuncio to the Democratic Republic of the Congo on October 7, 1992 (offering the nunciature as a place of relief and refuge to those persecuted during the Rwandan Genocide), to the European Community on January 21, 1999, and to Great Britain on December 11, 2004. The Archbishop believes in strict obedience to Church doctrine, once stating, "Thinking changes, society changes, fashion changes. But the central concept of human dignity from conception does not change" [ Ibid.] .

Trivia

*Archbishop Sainz Muñoz is a Real Madrid fan, and a walking and tennis enthusiast [Ibid.] .
*He holds a doctorate in canon law [The Catholic Church in England and Wales. [http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/cn/04/041214a.htm Pope appoints new Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain] December 14, 2004] , and was awarded an honorary doctorate in laws from the University of Aberdeen on July 2, 2007 [University of Aberdeen. [http://www.abdn.ac.uk/mediareleases/release.php?id=986 Sir Steve Redgrave honoured by Aberdeen] June 26, 2007] .
*Besides his native Spanish, he can speak English, French, and Italian [The Catholic Church in England and Wales. [http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/cn/04/041214a.htm Pope appoints new Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain] December 14, 2004] .

References

External links

* [http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bsamu.html Catholic-Hierarchy]