Leo makes long-anticipated auxiliary bishop appointments in Rome
The appointments follow a tumultuous period in the Diocese of Rome.
In a long-awaited move, Pope Leo XIV appointed on Wednesday four new auxiliary bishops for the Diocese of Rome.
The pope appointed four Roman parish priests as his new auxiliaries, possibly putting an end to a tumultuous period in the pope’s diocese, which began in 2024 with Pope Francis dismissing six auxiliary bishops in just more than a year and abolishing one of the diocese’s five pastoral sectors.
Since his election, Leo has moved cautiously to regain the trust of his diocesan clergy, many of whom had grown strained in their relationship with Pope Francis during the previous pontificate.
On Wednesday, Pope Leo appointed Fr. Stefano Sparapani, Fr. Andrea Carlevale, Fr. Alessandro Zenobbi, and Fr. Marco Valenti, all priests of the Roman diocese, as auxiliary bishops.
Each new bishop will lead one of the Diocese of Rome’s pastoral sectors. Sparapani will be vicar of the north sector, Zenobbi of the west sector, Carlevale for the south and Valenti for the north. Two of the men - Sparapani and Zenobbi - had already been heading their respective sectors before the appointment as bishop.
The diocese of Rome is divided into five pastoral sectors: north, east, south, west, and the “historic center.”
The historic center sector, which includes much of the area around St. Peter’s Basilica, was abolished by Pope Francis in October 2024, but restored by Pope Leo a year later.
In doing so, Leo said that the “motivation, premises and considerations” of Francis’ original reform “remain unchanged,” but that the central sector has “a specificity but also a homogeneity” that justifies its existence.
Each sector of the diocese is traditionally led by an auxiliary bishop. This arrangement was confirmed in the 2023 apostolic constitution reforming the governance of the Diocese of Rome, In Ecclesiarum communionem. However, Pope Francis appointed many auxiliaries elsewhere, and three of the five sectors had been since 2024 led by priests who were not bishops.
In fact, two of the new auxiliaries were already serving as vicars for one of the sectors: Sparapani has been the vicar for the north sector since 2025, and Zenobbi has been the vicar for the west sector since 2024.
Sparapani is perhaps the most well-known in Rome among the newly named auxiliary bishops. Born in 1956, he was ordained as a priest in the diocese of Rome in 1991. He served first as vicar and then parish priest in Corviale between 1991 and 2010. Corviale is one of the poorest areas of Rome, ravaged by homelessness, informal housing, and drug addiction.
In addition to being vicar for the north sector, he has served since 2010 as the parish priest of San Basilio, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Rome, widely known as one of the largest drug trafficking hubs in Italy, where anti-drug police operations are frequent. A Roman priest told The Pillar that Sparapani is “a priest who is sincerely involved with those in need and at the same time of sound doctrine.”
In a 2020 interview with L’Osservatore Romano, Sparapani said that he “earned respect simply by not judging people. I enter everyone’s homes; I don’t ask for a certificate of sainthood. I condemn sin, I don’t judge the sinner.”
The same article says that at least four of Sparapani’s former parishioners went on to become priests, including the priest who served as parish vicar in San Basilio.
Moreover, Sparapani serves as a spiritual father of the Almo Collegio Capranica, a prestigious Roman seminary in which several curial officials, bishops (including Sparapani itself), cardinals and even two popes (Benedict XV and Pius XII) have studied. Several sources told The Pillar that Sparapani is widely respected by both his peers and seminarians in his role as spiritual father in Capranica.
Fr. Alessandro Zenobbi was also born in Rome in 1969 and ordained a priest in the Diocese of Rome in 1996. Zenobbi is widely thought to be close to Cardinal Baldo Reina, the cardinal vicar of Rome. Zenobbi was the parish vicar of San Policarpo between 1996 and 2008, becoming the parish pastor that year. He has served as the pastor of Santa Lucia, a large parish in the Balduina neighborhood, since 2017.
Fr. Andrea Carlevale was born in Rome in 1971 and ordained a priest in the Diocese of Rome in 1998. He served as parish vicar in two different parishes between 1998 and 2009, then worked in the Pontifical Roman Major Seminary until 2015, and as the parish priest of Santa Maria di Loreto until his 2025 appointment as parish priest of San Giovanni Battista de Rossi.
Fr. Marco Valenti is the only one of the new auxiliary bishops not born in Rome. He hails from Cantalupo in Sabina, but was ordained a priest in the Diocese of Rome in 1986. Valenti has a degree in art history from La Sapienza University in Rome, and writes often about Roman churches for the media and academic publications.
He has served as a parish priest in several Roman parishes and is a member of the interdiocesan institute for clergy support for the dioceses of Rome and Ostia.
In addition to the newly appointed bishops, Pope Leo has other three auxiliaries in Rome: Bishop Renato Tarantelli, vice regent of the Diocese of Rome, whom he appointed vicar for the historic center sector; Cardinal Baldo Reina, cardinal vicar of Rome; and Bishop Michele Di Tolve, rector of the Roman major seminary.
Reina is expected to stay in his post, while Tarantelli and Di Tolve have been rumored to be on the way out of Rome.
Di Tolve was made an auxiliary bishop at the behest of Pope Francis, who had brought him from Milan to serve as rector of the seminary in Rome—a position that had never before carried episcopal consecration in Rome.
Moreover, several sources told The Pillar that many Roman priests did not take kindly to the appointment, resenting that a priest not originally from Rome was chosen to lead the seminary and elevated to the episcopate while several Roman auxiliary bishops were being reassigned by Francis.
Tarantelli’s rapid rise in the Vicariate of Rome also raised many eyebrows. He went from being ordained in 2018 at 40 years old to his appointment as bishop in 2024, just one year more than the minimum time required by canon law between priestly and episcopal consecration.
After working for years as a civil lawyer, upon his 2018 ordination,Tarantelli became the commissioner of several canonical foundations in the Diocese of Rome, worked in the diocesan child abuse commission, served as the director of the legal office and data protection officer of the Vicariate of Rome, and the episcopal vicar for legal and administrative affairs.
After his episcopal consecration, he was appointed as vice-regent of the Diocese of Rome. The vice-regent is the auxiliary bishop that assists the cardinal vicar in the governance of the diocese, much like a vicar general. Tarantelli is widely thought to be the ghostwriter of In Ecclesiarum Communionem, Francis’ 2023 reform of the Roman diocese.
Various sources told The Pillar that Tarantelli could be on the way out to be appointed as bishop of a smaller Italian diocese; however, other sources told The Pillar that Tarantelli might stay in Rome for the foreseeable future.
“It’s been said that he’s on the way out because he’s not well-liked, but it’s also true that Tarantelli has a lot of experience in administrative matters, which is a significant part of the vice regent’s job, and also of the vicar for the historical center, as it’s mostly historical churches, and the most touristic part of Rome,” one source said.
While non-Roman auxiliaries are not unheard of in the Diocese of Rome, sectors of the Roman clergy resented that all Roman auxiliaries were dismissed but Tarantelli, who was a recent vocation with a meteoric rise, several Roman priests told The Pillar, which is why the appointment of the new auxiliaries has been well received.
“I think, above all, the most important thing is not what happens with Tarantelli or Di Tolve. The most important thing is that the pope is actively working in rebuilding the relationship with his clergy by appointing four auxiliary bishops who are all Roman, who are well known and regarded by the local clergy, who know the diocese well, and have extensive pastoral experience in Rome,” another source told The Pillar.
Francis’ relationship with the Roman clergy was increasingly contentious, particularly at the tail end of his pontificate, when he dismissed most of his auxiliary bishops and abolished the historic center pastoral sector of the Diocese of Rome.
The priests of the historic center only found out about the decision to abolish the sector in a meeting a few days before the decision was made public in October 2024 – the day before the start of the second session of the Synod on Synodality.
The news was met with dismay from sectors of the Roman clergy, with one priest telling Il Messaggero that “it is paradoxical that the Synod on Synodality should open just at this time. I wonder where the synodality is in this situation.”
The dissolution of the historic center sector of Rome came amid a flurry of changes in auxiliary bishop appointments. These changes, which included the transfer of several bishops leading Rome’s pastoral sectors, led to claims of an episcopal “revolving door” within the diocese.
Meanwhile, the Diocese of Rome has experienced significant financial difficulties in recent years, while local outlets have reported that the Vicariate of Rome has rented out diocesan properties for below market price rates to private entities.
For example, the diocese reportedly leased the Cloisters of Bramante, a Renaissance building used for art expositions, to a private entity.
In 2022, the secretariat of the Vicariate of Rome commissioned a report on the property, which highlighted that the diocese could generate annual rental fees between 950,000 euros and 1.2 million euros, rather than the 373,000 euros it was then receiving.
A similar situation has allegedly occurred in properties rented out to entrepreneurs who have worked in projects of the vicariate. According to some reports, Dario Di Domenico, a Roman businessman, rented a property owned by the Vicariate for 3,600 euros, while the market price sat at 5,500 euros.