Pope Francis designated Archbishop Alfred Xuereb as the new Apostolic Nuncio (ambassador) to Morocco, succeeding Vito Rallo, said Vatican News on Friday.
Archbishop Xuereb had served previously in the same rank in South Korea and Mongolia (2018), and was elevated to the titular see of Amantea with the dignity of archbishop in the same year.
The Maltese clergyman was ordained a priest in 1984 and began working in the Secretariat of the Rector Magnificus of the Pontifical Lateran University in 1991.
He was Benedict XVI’s second private secretary in 2007, and Pope Francis’s first private secretary in 2013. In the same year, the new Pope assigned him to the Pontifical Commission on the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR) and the Pontifical Commission on the Organization of the Holy See’s Economic-Administrative Structure.
Xuereb was named Secretary General of the Secretariat for the Economy in 2014.
Christianity appeared in Morocco during the Roman period, and was practiced by Christian Berbers in Roman Mauretania Tingitana, but declined after the Islamic conquests.
Morocco had considerable concentrations of European Catholic settlers during the French and Spanish protectorates. It is still home to thousands of Christians.