From OSV News:
Pope Leo XIV has appointed Archbishop Christophe-Zakhia el-Kassis, apostolic nuncio to the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, as the Holy See’s new permanent observer to the United Nations in New York.
The Lebanese-born archbishop, who is also apostolic delegate to the Arabian Peninsula, succeeds Archbishop Gabriele G. Caccia, who is now the papal nuncio to the United States. Archbishop Caccia had been U.N. nuncio from 2019 until he was named to his new post by the pope on March 7.
The appointment of Archbishop el-Kassis was announced July 25 by the Holy See Press Office.
Archbishop el-Kassis was appointed nuncio to the United Arab Emirates Jan. 3, 2023, and was named apostolic nuncio to Yemen and apostolic delegate to the Arabian Peninsula July 22, 2024. Prior to those assignments, he had been the nuncio to Pakistan since Nov. 24, 2018.
… A nuncio is a Vatican diplomatic representative with the rank of ambassador. He acts as both the Holy See’s ambassador to the government and its representative to the Catholic Church in the host country, maintaining ties between local bishops and Rome.
El-Kassis is fluent in Lebanese, Arabic, English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Indonesian.
Christopher Hale, meanwhile, dug up some interesting history on the position:
Seven men have held the post since the Holy See opened its observer mission in 1964 — Alberto Giovannetti, Giovanni Cheli, Renato Martino, Celestino Migliore, Francis Chullikatt, Bernardito Auza and Caccia — and five of the seven were Italians, the exceptions being an Indian and a Filipino.
El-Kassis breaks the pattern two ways. He is the first bishop from the Middle East, and the first Eastern Catholic in a line that has otherwise belonged entirely to the Latin Church.
Leo has also, for the first time, given the job to a man whose home region is majority Muslim and whose Church has spent its whole history as a minority inside the Islamic world.
