On December 7, Rome will officially have a new Cardinal Vicar, Baldassare Reina, who will be given a red hat by Pope Francis at the consistory. The Sicilian, who heads the vicariate in charge of the pontiff's diocese, will have the onerous task of fulfilling the Pope's desire to see Rome become a model diocese for the rest of the world.
(The pope is always the Bishop of Rome, but as he is also in charge of the universal church, a vicar helps him with the practical matters of running his own diocese.)
At the Angelus on October 6, Pope Francis not only announced that Bishop Baldassare Reina would be created a cardinal in December. He also appointed him vicar for the Diocese of Rome, with immediate effect.
This position had been vacant since the Pope appointed the previous cardinal-vicar, Angelo De Donatis, to the post of major penitentiary.
An outsider in Rome
Although originally from Puglia, Cardinal De Donatis was particularly well-established in the Diocese of Rome. He had been incardinated there in 1983, three years after his ordination. Also, he had held the post of spiritual director at the Pontifical Seminary from 1990 to 2003, giving him real proximity to a whole generation of priests.
Bishop Reina, on the other hand, was parachuted into Rome by Pope Francis only in 2022, making his integration all the more delicate.
Bishop Baldassare Reina, known as “Don Baldo” (“don” being an Italian term of respect for clergy), hails from San Giovanni Gemini, a small town in central Sicily, where he was born in 1970. Born into a devout Catholic family, he found himself called to the priesthood from an early age. He joined the minor seminary of Agrigento at the age of 11, then the major seminary, before leaving for Rome to pursue his studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University, his first contact with the Italian capital.
Serving his Sicilian diocese
Ordained a priest in 1995 at the age of 25 for his Diocese of Agrigento, he continued his studies in biblical theology (graduating in 1998) and was then appointed diocesan assistant for Catholic Action for his diocese for three years. He then served as parish priest in three different parishes. Then in 2013 he was put in charge of the major seminary in Agrigento.
“Don Baldo,” as he is still called today by those around him, was the rector of the seminary until 2022, during which time he also taught Sacred Scripture. Years later, in 2024, he was accused by a former seminarian, now an LGBT activist, of forcing him to undergo conversion therapy in order to cure him of his homosexuality.
His diocese came under the spotlight in 2013 when Pope Francis chose it as his first destination outside Rome, visiting the island of Lampedusa. The profile of the bishop at the time, Francesco Montenegro — who was particularly committed to the issue of welcoming migrants — prompted the pontiff to elevate him to the cardinalate in 2015. In doing so he gave him priority over the other archbishops of Sicily's major dioceses: Palermo, Messina, and Syracuse. In the college of cardinals, Reina will sit alongside this discreet 78-year-old cardinal, now retired but reputedly very close to the Pope.
Fr. Reina's name first appeared on Pope Francis' agenda in 2018, when he was received at the Vatican with seminarians from his diocese. In his speech, given off the cuff, the pontiff paid several compliments to the rector.
A meteoric rise
Did this meeting play a role in Fr. Reina's subsequent career? Possibly, although it wasn't until 2022 that the pontiff called the Sicilian to Rome to serve in the dicastery for the clergy. Things then accelerated for him: a few weeks later, the Pope decided to appoint him auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Rome, with pastoral responsibility for the western sector of the diocese. At that point, the diocese was still divided into five sectors (the four cardinal points, and a central sector) — a division that was eliminated by the pope on October 1, 2024.
Bishop Reina was ordained a bishop by Cardinal Vicar Angelo De Donatis, his direct superior. At the time, the latter was going through a difficult period. On the one hand, he was going through a difficult convalescence from COVID-19. On the other, and more importantly, he was dealing with the fallout of his public defense of Fr. Marko Rupnik, the famous mosaicist accused by various women of sexual and spiritual abuse. The workshop Fr. Rupnik founded, the Aletti Center, depends on the Diocese of Rome.
Arriving at a time of transition
In January 2023, Pope Francis published his new apostolic constitution for the diocese, which severely restricted the powers of the cardinal vicar. It defined him as an auxiliary bishop of the pope and a mere coordinator of the work of the other auxiliary bishops, placed under the direct control of the pontiff. On the contrary, the Pope strengthened the position of vice-regent (the cardinal vicar's second-in-command), entrusting it to Bishop Reina, who had been in Rome for only a few months. He then combined this position with that of bishop in charge of the western sector.
In April 2024, with the departure of Cardinal De Donatis, the pontiff asked Bishop Reina to take over the transition. And this, at a time when the Pope had launched a major renovation program aimed at making Rome a model diocese, particularly in terms of synodality. His appointment as vicar brings to a close a period of transition that may not have gone down well with all the members of the community of priests in Rome.
“Those who know him, like him”
“He's a very active man, who gets up very early in the morning to work; a simple man who takes public transportation, with his backpack, to get around,” reports a diocesan priest interviewed by I.MEDIA, who also notes that “Don Baldo” is comfortable being on first-name terms and is approachable. However, he admits that adapting to this non-Roman was tricky: “People looked at him strangely,” he says, but believes that now “those who know him, like him.”
As the key position in the vicariate is now that of vice-regent, hitherto held by Bishop Reina, the choice of his replacement will be decisive.
In a video sent to members of his diocese, Bishop Reina stated that his desire was “to continue to serve” the Church of Rome. “I know it's not an easy mission, because our city is beautiful, but extremely complex, unfortunately marked by many problems and difficulties,” he acknowledged. However, he assured them that he wished to be “the image of the Good Shepherd for all.”
A major mission awaits the new cardinal vicar in 2025: the Jubilee. Immediately after his appointment, he was quick to denounce the delay and inconvenience caused by the work being done by Rome's mayor's office.
