Youngest bishop in Spain now “co-prince of Andorra”

Archbishop Vives was appointed by Pope John Paul II in 2001 and took the title of co-prince of Andorra in 2003. He shared the title with French presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande, and Emmanuel Macron.

The two heads of state of Andorra, although not Andorran citizens, are the guarantors of the constitution of the small mountain principality nestled between France and Spain. As a sign of this collaboration, it is customary for the French president to award the Bishop of Urgell the insignia of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor upon his retirement.

A few days before Bishop Vives celebrated his 75th birthday — the canonical retirement age — on July 24, 2024, Pope Francis decided to appoint a coadjutor bishop to succeed him after a transition period. The Argentine pontiff chose a young diplomat: Monsignor Josep-Lluis Serrano Pentinat, 48. At the time he was an advisor to the nunciature in the section for general affairs in Rome and had served in the nunciatures of Brazil, Nicaragua, and Mozambique. He thus became the youngest bishop in Spain.

The unusual political mission awaiting this Catalan, who was ordained a priest in 2002, was established in a treaty dating back to the 13th century. To settle a territorial dispute between the county of Foix and the diocese of Urgell, a treaty of paréage was established on Andorran territory. This led to the current system of co-suzerainty, with French presidents inheriting the title after the fall of the monarchy.

This system means that the Bishop of Urgell regularly heads official delegations of heads of state during celebrations in Rome, particularly for the installation of a new pope. Andorra is first in alphabetical order among the monarchies, which take precedence over republics in Vatican protocol, apart from Italy and the pontiff's country of origin.

On March 19, 2013, according to Spanish media reports, Pope Francis expressed surprise at finding a bishop among the heads of state who greeted him after his installation Mass and asked about a change of regime, as he considered this arrangement anachronistic. However, during a visit to this country of 80,000 inhabitants in September 2023, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Holy See, denied these rumors. “On behalf of the Holy See, we fully support the fact that a bishop is co-prince, that is to say, that he shares the function of head of state."

He assured them that the pope had “no intention of changing the constitutional order of the co-principality.”

The diocese of Urgell, suffragan to that of Tarragona, is a rare case of a binational diocese, straddling the territory of Andorra and part of Spanish Catalonia. It has a total population of approximately 213,000, almost all of whom are Catholic. Hit by a decline in priestly vocations like many dioceses in northern Spain, the diocese of Urgell currently has only 70 incardinated priests, compared to more than 250 in the 1950s.