Pope names English priest to replace slain Burundi ambassador

Published: 2004-01-22

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope John Paul II has named a 49-year-old English priest to replace a slain papal ambassador to Burundi. Msgr. Paul Gallagher, who has been in the Vatican's diplomatic service since 1984, will receive his first assignment as papal nuncio. At the same time, the pope named him an archbishop, the Vatican said Jan. 22. The appointment came less than a month after the former papal nuncio, Archbishop Michael A. Courtney, was gunned down by unknown assailants as he was traveling in a car in Burundi. It marked the first time in the modern age that a papal ambassador had been assassinated. Archbishop-designate Gallagher, a native of Liverpool, was ordained a priest in 1977 and later earned a degree in canon law. In the 1980s, he served in Vatican nunciatures in Tanzania, Uruguay and the Philippines, then worked in the foreign affairs section of the Vatican's Secretariat of State. Since 2000, he has been the Vatican's representative to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France. He speaks Italian, French and Spanish.

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