Who stays in the Roman curia?
When a pope dies, the Vatican’s work continues, with some notable differences.
With the death of Pope Francis, all Vatican prefects resign their jobs — with a few exceptions — and no new curial heads are appointed until a successor is elected.
During the papal interregnum, offices in the Roman curia face the challenge of keeping on with their work without the prefects appointed to oversee them.
While all major decisions are halted until a new pope is elected, a lot of ordinary business must proceed, and secretaries and curial staff remain in their posts to keep their departments working.
The Pillar takes a look at who is going and who is staying during the interregnum.
The law
Praedicate evangelium, Pope Francis’ 2022 apostolic exhortation reforming the Roman curia, says that “when the Apostolic See is vacant, all heads of curial institutions and members cease from their office.”
But there are two prominent exceptions: the Major Penitentiary and the Almoner of His Holiness.
The Major Penitentiary, currently Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, oversees the Apostolic Penitentiary, which is responsible for issues related to the sacrament of confession. Praedicate evangelium says he “continues to carry out the ordinary business within his competence and refers all matters to the College of Cardinals which otherwise would have been referred to the Roman Pontiff.”
The Almoner of His Holiness, presently Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, “continues to exercise the works of charity, according to the same criteria followed during the pontificate and remains at the service of the College of Cardinals until the election of the new Roman Pontiff.”
But if all prefects and dicastery members (papal appointees who take part in plenary and ordinary meetings) cease their service, who carries out the ordinary business of each dicastery until a new pope is elected?
Praedicate evangelium says that “when the See is vacant, the secretaries attend to the ordinary governance of curial institutions, taking care of ordinary business only.”
During the vacancy, oversight of the government of Vatican City State is transferred to the College of Cardinals, according to Universi Dominici Gregis, Pope St. John Paul II’s 1996 apostolic constitution. Therefore, the recently appointed President of the Governorate of the Vatican City State, Sr. Raffaela Petrini, will step back from her post.
But the new pope can always reappoint officials to their posts, as Pope Francis did in 2013 with many curial officials such as Cardinals Müller, Sarah, and Ouellet.
So, who will continue leading the most important curial departments until a new pope is elected?
Who is staying?
Secretariat of state
Both the sostituto of the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, and the secretary for relations with states, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, retain their positions.
Peña Parra is the pope’s chief of staff. He organizes the activities of the Roman curia, makes appointments to curial offices on behalf of the pope, and cares for the papal seal and Fisherman’s Ring.
Peña Parra, born in Maracaibo, Venezuela, is a career diplomat, having served as apostolic nuncio to Pakistan and then Mozambique, until Pope Francis named him sostituto in 2018.
His term has been marred by controversy. In 2023, he admitted to having authorized illegal electronic surveillance of the director of the Institute for the Works of Religion. And in a testimony before the High Court of England and Wales in July 2024, he acknowledged signing off invoices he knew were “completely fictitious,” in the London property scandal.
More recently, in September 2024, Peña Parra issued an order attempting to restore to the clerical state Ariel Alberto Principi, an Argentine priest convicted of child sexual abuse. But the move was blocked by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s disciplinary section due to lack of jurisdiction.
As secretary for relations with states, Archbishop Gallagher is considered the Vatican’s foreign minister, as he is responsible for the Holy See’s interactions with civil governments and international organizations.
Gallagher has worked in the Vatican’s diplomatic service since 1984, and has served as papal nuncio in Burundi, Guatemala, and Australia.
Although during much of his tenure Gallagher was a typical restrained diplomat, limiting his public statements and always defending the Vatican’s diplomatic efforts, in recent years his public persona has become more frank.
In a July 2022 interview with the official portal of the German bishops’ conference, Gallagher said the Holy See was “very concerned right now about the direction that the Church in Germany seems to be taking at the moment”
“Of course, this also has an impact on our work. This has an impact on how the German state sees the Holy See and the Catholic Church — and vice versa,” he added.
In another interview just two weeks later, Gallagher said, regarding the Vatican-China deal, that “the balance sheet, I suppose, is not terribly impressive.”
He also described Russia as the aggressor in the Ukraine war, saying that he "was speaking in the name of the Holy See, and the Holy Father hasn’t corrected me so far on what I’ve said on his behalf."
Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith
The sole dicastery with two secretaries is the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which has Msgr. Armando Matteo and Archbishop John Joseph Kennedy, leading the doctrinal and disciplinary sections of the dicastery, respectively.
Kennedy started working in the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2003 and served as an official until 2017, when he was appointed as head of the disciplinary section of the CDF.
When Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández was appointed as prefect of the DDF in 2023, the pope instructed him to focus on the doctrinal work of the dicastery, leaving disciplinary matters in the hands of Kennedy and his section – although Fernández’s himself has disputed the level of involvement he is supposed to have in the disciplinary section, saying he was only ordered to refrain from cases involving minors.
Kennedy was the official who overruled the Vatican’s Secretariat of State’s intervention in the Príncipi case.
Msgr. Matteo became adjunct undersecretary of the CDF in 2021 and secretary of the doctrinal section in 2024.
Matteo’s tenure as secretary had its most controversial moment with the publication of the declaration Fiducia supplicans, addressing the blessing of same-sex couples, in December 2023. Matteo was a co-signatory of both the declaration and a January 2024 press release responding to concerns raised by many bishops’ conferences, especially in Africa.
Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments
The Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments had not been the epicenter of Vatican controversy in a long time. But that changed when Pope Francis published the 2021 motu proprio Traditionis custodes, limiting access to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman rite of the Mass.
As prefect, Cardinal Arthur Roche formally steps back, while his secretary, Archbishop Vittorio Viola, O.F.M., will stay in the dicastery for the foreseeable future.
Viola took his solemn vows in the Order of Friars Minor in 1991 and was ordained a priest in 1993. After teaching sacred liturgy in the Theological Institute of Assisi and serving in various capacities in the Franciscan order and the diocese of Assisi, Viola received his episcopal ordination as Bishop of Tortona in December 2014, which made him the youngest Italian ordinary at the time, serving in the commission for liturgy in the Italian bishops’ conference.
In May 2021, the pope appointed him secretary of the then-Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
As secretary, Viola took part in the drafting of Traditiones custodes and the subsequent Desiderio desideravi, an apostolic letter on the “liturgical formation of the people of God,” whose principles he has promoted publicly.
Dicastery for Bishops
Archbishop Ilson de Jesus Montanari, the secretary of the Dicastery for Bishops, will also remain in post.
Montanari started working in the then-Congregation for Bishops in 2008, after leaving his native Brazil, and was appointed as secretary in 2013. Pope Francis also named him secretary of the College of Cardinals in 2014 and vice camerlengo in 2020, but never gave him the red hat.
In the last few years of Cardinal Marc Ouellet’s tenure as prefect of the dicastery, Montanari was thought to be the real decision-maker in the department.
In fact, Montanari was rumored to have been Pope Francis’ preferred candidate for the top job, but was said to have turned down the promotion more than once, until the pope appointed Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost as prefect in January 2023.
Montanari was said to favor a return to his native Brazil, rather than looking for promotion in Rome. But the pope filled up Brazilian dioceses from his hospital bed in February and March 2025 without giving Montanari a new post in his homeland.
Dicastery for the Clergy
The secretary of the Dicastery for the Clergy, Archbishop Andrés Ferrada, will also remain.
Ferrada was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Santiago de Chile in 1999. After studying in Rome until 2006, he served in the archdiocese’s major seminary. He moved again to Rome in 2018 to work in the then-Congregation for the Clergy and was named its secretary in 2021.
Ferrada became one of the first priests in Chile to say publicly that he found accusations against the prominent cleric Fernando Karadima credible.
Karadima was found guilty of sexually abusing minors after a 2011 canonical investigation which led to his laicization in 2018. He died in 2021.
Karadima was Ferrada’s spiritual director from when he was 19 years old. But in 2010, Ferrada dissociated himself from his former mentor with a group of other Chilean priests. Ferrada testified in court in support of Karadima’s victims and said he had witnessed Karadima’s unwanted sexual advances.
The Apostolic Penitentiary
The Major Penitentiary is the most senior curial official, alongside the Camerlengo (Cardinal Kevin Farrell) and the papal almoner, to stay in his post during a papal interregnum.
Cardinal Angelo De Donatis was appointed in April 2024 after serving as cardinal vicar of Rome since 2017 and an auxiliary bishop of Rome since 2015.
At the Apostolic Penitentiary, De Donatis has been out of the spotlight. But in his role as cardinal vicar, he was at the center of various controversies.
De Donatis took a leading role in defending former Jesuit Fr. Marko Rupnik from accusations of abusing dozens of religious women.
In December 2022, De Donatis published a statement effectively disavowing responsibility for Rupnik or his reported crimes, even while conceding the priest had a “multi-level pastoral relationship with the Diocese of Rome.”
Instead, the cardinal took aim at “disconcerting communication, especially from the media” regarding Rupnik’s crimes, which, he said, “disorients the People of God.”
The Italian outlet New Daily Compass reported in March that Rupnik and some of his close collaborators were living in a Benedictine convent administered by De Donatis in Rieti, 50 miles from Rome. According to the report, De Donatis even built a residence for himself in the convent’s property.
De Donatis was not the pope’s first choice as vicar of Rome in 2017, but after 80% of Rome’s pastors chose him in a consultation, the pope decided to appoint him.
Thus, the relationship between Francis and De Donatis was marked by a slight tension from the beginning. De Donatis allegedly did not like some of the changes made by In Ecclesiarum Communione, a 2023 apostolic constitution reorganizing the Rome diocese.
The cardinal’s departure was a source of controversy among the Roman clergy, as he had been a popular figure. In an April 2024 meeting, priests complained to the pope about the way his departure had been announced, and that the customary farewell Mass held for all outgoing cardinal vicars of Rome would not take place for De Donatis.
The Governorate of Vatican City State
In what was one of his last major appointments, Pope Francis named Sr. Raffaela Petrini as president of the Governorate of Vatican City State.
But during a papal interregnum, the civil power of the Holy See belongs to the College of Cardinals, which means that Petrini could conceivably end up having a remarkably short term in her post.
Archbishop Emilio Nappa, also recently appointed as secretary general of the Governorate of the Vatican City State, keeps his job.
Nappa was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Aversa in 1997 and went on to serve as a parish priest, seminary teacher, and university chaplain in the same diocese.
He was an official of the apostolic nunciature in Italy and then in the section for general affairs of the Secretariat of State.
In December 2022, his episcopal ordination was announced as he was appointed as adjunct secretary of the section for the first evangelization and the new particular churches of the Dicastery for Evangelization and president of the Pontifical Mission Societies.
Reading this leaves me with a feeling of dejection that men of such seeming ill repute and ill judgement have been embedded in the top layers of the Curia. We already knew this, but to read it in one straightforward report leaves a glum wake.
Thanks Edgar! This is very helpful!