Giovanni Tonucci

Diplomatic career

From 1971 till the end of 1973 his diplomatic career took him to Yaoundé, Cameroon, then, from 1974 to 1976 to the United Kingdom. From July 1976 he was back in Rome, assigned to the Section for General Affairs of the Holy See Secretariat of State where he worked with Agostino Casaroli, until being transferred, in April 1978, to the Section for the Relations with States under Achille Silvestrini. At the end of the 1984 he was assigned to the Apostolic Nunciature in Belgrade, at that time still the Yugoslavia, where he worked until the summer of 1987 when he was transferred to the Nunicature to the United States in Washington.

On 21 October 1989 Tonucci was appointed Titular Archbishop of Torcello and Apostolic Nuncio to Bolivia.

He was consecrated a bishop on 6 January 1990 by Pope John Paul II, with co-consecrators Msgr. Giovanni Battista Re and Msgr. Miroslav Stefan Marusyn.

On 9 March 1996 he was named the Apostolic Nuncio to Kenya.

The role of Permanent Observer Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the UN Environment and Human Settlements Programs (UNEP/UN–HABITAT) was added the next year.

On 16 October 2004, Pope John Paul II appointed him Apostolic Nuncio to Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway.