Antonio Maria Vegliò

Antonio Maria Vegliò was born in Macerata Feltria on 3 February 1938 and ordained a priest for Pesaro on 18 March 1962. A doctor of canon law, he joined the Holy See's diplomatic service and was appointed titular Archbishop of Eclano and pro-nuncio to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands on 27 July 1985 (consecrated 6 October by Cardinal Casaroli). He then represented the Holy See across West Africa — Sénégal, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, Mali, and as apostolic delegate to Mauritania — and from 1997 in Lebanon and Kuwait.

In 2001 he became Secretary of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches. On 28 February 2009 Benedict XVI appointed him President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, the office from which he became the Church's public voice for refugees and displaced people: “Closing borders is not the answer,” he said on World Refugee Day 2011. He lamented the deaths of Eritrean migrants at sea and called the 2009 Swiss minaret vote “a heavy blow for religious freedom and integration.” Benedict XVI created him a cardinal on 18 February 2012, with the deaconry of San Cesareo in Palatio (elevated pro hac vice to a presbyteral title in March 2022). His term ended on 31 December 2016, when the council was folded into the new Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.