| Intro | Catholic cardinal |
| Is |
Religious scholar Diplomat Theologian Priest |
| From |
Italy Mali |
| Type |
Religion Politics |
| Gender | male |
| Birth | 3 February 1938, Macerata Feltria, Pesaro and Urbino Province, Marche, Italy |
| Age: | 82 years |
Antonio Maria Vegliò (born 3 February 1938) is an Italian Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church, who has served as Vatican diplomat and in the Roman Curia. He was President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerants. Vegliò was created a Cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI on 18 February 2012.
Early life and ordination
Born in Macerata Feltria, Italy, he was ordained a priest for the diocese of Pesaro in 1962. He was attended the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy where he studied diplomacy. Besides his native Italian, he speaks English, French and Spanish.
Nuncio
He was appointed Titular Archbishop of Eclano in 1985 on was appointed Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. In 1989, Vegliò was appointed Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, and Mali and promoted to full Apostolic Nuncio in 1994. He served as Apostolic Nuncio to Lebanon and Kuwait from 1997 to 1999.
Curial work
In 2001, Archbishop Vegliò became Secretary of the Vatican Congregation for the Oriental Churches and, in 2009, the President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerants.
The Vatican announced on 6 January 2012 that Archbishop Vegliò would be created cardinal and on 18 February he became Cardinal-Deacon of San Cesareo in Palatio. On 21 April 2012 Cardinal Vegliò was named, for the usual five-year period, a member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
In 2009, he organised the first European meeting of the pastoral care of the streets (drug users, street women, children, the homeless. He has intervened several times in the public debate in support of the rights of migrants, refugees, immigrants, displaced persons, or other persons disadvantaged because of their status in mobility. He has spoken out against piracy infesting the seas and has launched a campaign of solidarity with seafarers and their families affected by the tsunami in Japan.
He was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2013 papal conclave that elected Pope Francis.
Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Vegliò to the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State on June 1, 2013.
Views
Rights of migrants
In August 2009, he lamented the deaths of more than 70 Eritreans trying to reach Italy in a boat and implicitly criticized the Berlusconi government’s tough new policies on immigration.
Swiss ban on minarets
Vegliò declared that the popular vote held in Switzerland against the construction of additional minarets was a heavy blow for religious freedom and integration in that country. His colleague Agostino Marchetto expressed a somewhat different view, arguing that the Swiss vote did not compromise religious freedom.