Archbishop Charles John Brown, the new papal ambassador to the Philippines, met Pope Francis as he prepares for his new mission, reported CBCP News.

Brown, a 61-year-old American theologian, was received by the pope during a private audience in the Vatican on October 23.

Present during the audience was Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of the Peoples.

The meeting took place a few days after the papal envoy ended his tour of duty in Albania where he was assigned for the last three years.

Brown was appointed apostolic nuncio to the Philippines by the pope on Sept. 28.

As papal envoy, he will represent the Vatican State to government authorities in the Philippines, while also playing a crucial role in representing the Holy Father to the Catholic Church in the Philippines.

In many Catholic countries like the Philippines, the nuncio is also the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps.

Brown is not a career diplomat, but in 2011 Pope Benedict XVI named him the papal nuncio to Ireland after several years of working in the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The post in the Philippines was vacant since November 2019, when the pope transferred Italian Archbishop Gabriele Caccia to the United Nations in New York, as head of the Holy See’s Permanent Observer mission.

No date has been announced yet as to when the papal envoy will assume his new post in Manila.

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