Pope Francis appoints new Nuncio to Ghana

Pope Francis has appointed His Excellency Monsignor Henryk Mieczyslaw Jagodzinski as the new Apostolic Nuncio to Ghana.

The news was announced at the National Catholic Secretariat(NCS) in Accra on Sunday 3rd May, 2020, by the Gen. Secretary of the Ghana Catholic Bishops' Conference(GCBC) Very Rev. Fr. Lazarus Anondee.

Monsignor Jagodzinski replaces Archbishop Jean Marie Speich whose appointment to Ghana officially ended in March last year.

Monsignor was born on the 11th of January, 1969 at Malogoszcz in Poland. He was ordained a Catholic priest on June 3rd 1995.

Monsignor Jagodzinski obtained a Doctorate Degree in Canon Law from the Pontifical University of Holy Cross, in Rome in the year 2001. He also studied at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome from 1999 to 2001 in preparation for the Diplomatic Service.

He then entered the Diplomatic Service of the Holy See on 1st July 2001. He has since served at the Holy See Secretariat of State and Apostolic Nunciatures in Belorussia, Croatia and India.

Monsignor Jagodzinski speaks 7 languages, Polish his native language, Italian, French, English, Croatian, Russian and Spanish.

Fortunately for him and by virtue of his new appointment, Monsignor Jagodzinski has been promoted to the rank of an Archbishop by Pope Francis.

The 51years old Monsignor Jagodzinski is also the 10th Apostolic Nuncio to Ghana since the first, Archbishop Girolamo Pringione who served the Church in Ghana from 1973 to 1976.

An Apostolic Nuncio per the arrangements in the Catholic Church is a papal ambassador to a foreign government or the representative of the Pope in various countries.

Better still, he could be said to be the Ambassador of Vatican to the country he is being assigned to.