Pope Francis names new nuncio to Canada

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis named Slovenia Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic to be the new nuncio to Canada.

The archbishop, who will celebrate his 69th birthday June 10, had been the Vatican's representative to Geneva-based U.N. agencies and at the World Trade Organization since 2016.

His appointment to Canada was announced June 5. Archbishop Jurkovic succeeds Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, who was named nuncio to Albania in December.

Archbishop Jurkovic has been a Vatican diplomat for more than 35 years and has been an archbishop and nuncio for more than 20 years.

Born June 10, 1952, in Kocevje, Slovenia, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1977 and earned a degree in canon law.

He entered the Vatican diplomatic corps in 1984 and served at Vatican embassies and delegations in Korea, Colombia and Russia. He was then assigned to the Vatican Secretariat of State where he led several Vatican delegations to intergovernmental meetings on religious freedom and economic justice.

After being ordained an archbishop in 2001, he served as apostolic nuncio to Belarus. He served as nuncio to Ukraine from 2004 to 2011 and nuncio to the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan from 2011 to 2016.