Faustino Sainz Muñoz

Styles of Faustino Sainz Muñoz


Reference style	The Most Reverend
Spoken style	Your Excellency
Religious style	Monsignor
Posthumous style	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.

[edit] 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^[1] ^[2]. 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”^[3].

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^[4].

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"^[5].

Archbishop Sainz Muñoz is a Real Madrid fan, and a walking and tennis enthusiast^[6].
He holds a doctorate in canon law^[7], and was awarded an honorary doctorate in laws from the University of Aberdeen on July 2, 2007^[8].
Besides his native Spanish, he can speak English, French, and Italian^[9].

Preceded by Giulio Einaudi	Pro-Nuncio to Cuba 1988–1992	Succeeded by Beniamino Stella
Preceded by Alfio Rapisarda	Nuncio to the Democratic Republic of the Congo 1992–1999	Succeeded by Francisco-Javier Lozano
Preceded by Angelo Pedroni	Nuncio to the European Community 1999–2004	Succeeded by André Dupuy
Preceded by Pablo Puente Buces	Nuncio to Great Britain 2004–present	Succeeded by incumbent