Pope taps Italian canon lawyer for top position at Dicastery for Bishops

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — In the first major appointment of his papacy, Pope Leo XIV chose an Italian expert in canon law to succeed him as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

Archbishop Filippo Iannone, 67, has led the Dicastery for Legislative Texts since 2018 and will begin his new role Oct. 15, the Vatican press office announced Sept. 26.

Pope Leo, as Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, led the Dicastery for Bishops and the pontifical commission from early 2023 until his election as pope in May.

The dicastery coordinates the search for candidates to fill the office of bishop in most of the Latin-rite dioceses around the world and makes recommendations about their appointments to the pope. It also deals with setting up, uniting, suppressing dioceses, changing diocesan boundaries, setting up military ordinariates and ordinariates for Catholics who have come from the Anglican Communion.

The dicastery “cooperates with the bishops in all matters concerning the correct and fruitful exercise of the pastoral office entrusted to them,” according to the constitution, “Praedicate Evangelium.”

The prefect of the dicastery can organize an apostolic visitation of a diocese where a bishop appears to be struggling, and it is involved in the process of investigating bishops suspected of mishandling or covering up cases of sexual abuse.

As head of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, Archbishop Iannone was deeply involved with the revision of the Code of Canon Law’s “Book VI: Penal Sanctions in the Church,” one of seven books that make up the code for the Latin rite of the Catholic Church; with updated descriptions of the crimes of sexual abuse, including child pornography, and the required actions of a bishop or superior of a religious order in handling allegations, it was promulgated by Pope Francis in 2021.

And, following up on that, the archbishop led the preparation of the 2023 update of “Vos Estis Lux Mundi” (“You are the light of the world”), which set out the procedures for bishops, religious superiors and the heads of international Catholic movements to investigate allegations of sexual abuse or the cover up of abuse.

In February, the Dicastery for Legislative Texts — defending the right to self-defense and to a presumption of innocence — published on its website a letter by the archbishop and the dicastery’s secretary strongly cautioning dioceses and religious orders against publishing the names of church personnel who have been accused of abuse but have not been found guilty in civil or canonical procedures.

The new prefect was born in Naples Dec. 13, 1957, and entered the Carmelites in 1976 after finishing high school. He completed his bachelor’s in theology at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy and then earned a doctorate in both civil and canon law from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.

He made his first solemn profession as a Carmelite in 1980 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1982.

Within the Carmelite order, he served as treasurer and as counselor. From 1989 to 1995, he was president of the order’s commission for the revision of its constitutions. He also held positions in the Archdiocese of Naples, including on the tribunal and as a regional episcopal vicar.

St. John Paul II named him an auxiliary bishop of Naples in 2001, and Pope Benedict XIV named him bishop of Sora-Aquino-Pontecorvo in 2009. Three years later, Pope Benedict named him an archbishop and vice regent of the Diocese of Rome.

Pope Francis named him adjunct secretary of the office for legislative texts in 2017 and president a year later.

He currently serves as a member of the appeals board for abuse cases at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, a member of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints and as a member of the Apostolic Signatura, the Holy See’s highest court.

While naming Archbishop Iannone head of the dicastery, Pope Leo also reappointed for five-year terms Archbishop Ilson de Jesus Montanari as dicastery secretary and Msgr. Ivan Kovac as undersecretary of the dicastery.