The Holy See announced this afternoon the appointment of Monsignor Miguel Maury Buendía of Madrid, Titular Archbishop of Itálica (Santiponce) and hitherto apostolic nuncio to Romania, as new apostolic nuncio to England.

Biography

Born in Madrid on November 19, 1955, he completed his primary studies at the San Estanislao de Kotska Jesuit school in Malaga. Back in Madrid, he studied secondary school at the Ramiro de Maeztu Institute and several music courses at the Madrid Royal Conservatory of Music. Maury holds a degree in Geography and History from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the Autonomous University of Madrid, specializing in Art History. He also has a degree in Dogmatic Theology from the Pontifical University of Salamanca and a doctorate in Canon Law from the Pontifical University of Santo Tomás at Urbe (Angelicum) in Rome.

He studied Philosophy and Theology at the Madrid Council Seminary, and was ordained a priest on 26 June 1980 in the parish of San Francisco de Borja. On July 1 of the same year, he took office as parish vicar in Santísima Trinidad de Collado Villalba, where he remained until October 1984.

After completing diplomatic studies at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome, he entered the Diplomatic Service of the Holy See in July 1987. Between 1987 and 1996 he served as secretary in the apostolic nunciatures of Rwanda, Uganda, Morocco and Nicaragua, and from 1996 to 2004 he was directors in Egypt, Slovenia and Macedonia and Ireland. During this time, he has also put his pastoral work into action, as a professor at the Nicaraguan National Seminary or at the Italian Lyceum in Cairo, and assistant chaplain of the Carabinieri Corps or the residence of the Little Sisters of the Forsaken Elderly in Rome.

Appointed as honorary prelate of His Holiness on June 8, 1999, since September 1, 2004 he has attended the South East European countries in the Section for Relations with Countries of the Holy See State Secretariat. And he has represented the Holy See in various international conferences and congresses.

The newly appointed British nuncio speaks five languages: Italian, English, French, Slovene and Russian. On 19 May 2008, Benedict XVI named him Titular Archbishop of Itálica and Apostolic Nuncio to Kazakhstan and on 19 July the same year Nuncio to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. He received episcopal ordination at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome on 12 June 2008.

On December 5, 2015, he was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Romania, and on January 25, 2016, Apostolic Nuncio to Moldova.

Among other honors, he has received the Catholic Order of Isabel Prize (Kingdom of Spain), Award with Plaque of the Order of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem (Holy See), Medal of the Order of Mercy (Republic of Kazakhstan), and Medal of Zero Sine Deo from the Romanian Royal House.