Claudio Maniago Elected President of Calabrian Episcopal Conference
Monsignor Claudio Maniago, Archbishop of Catanzaro-Squillace, has been elected president of the Calabrian Episcopal Conference, succeeding Monsignor Fortunato Morrone.
Bishop Claudio Maniago, metropolitan archbishop of Catanzaro-Squillace, has been elected president of the Calabrian Episcopal Conference. The election took place on Wednesday, 28 October, during a meeting of the region's bishops at the Conference's headquarters, the San Pio X Seminary in Catanzaro, convened for the renewal of the presidency.
Maniago, until now vice president of the Conference, succeeds Monsignor Fortunato Morrone, Archbishop of Reggio Calabria-Bova, who had led the Conference since 4 October 2021. In the same session, the bishops chose the new vice president, Monsignor Serafino Parisi, Bishop of Lamezia Terme and moderator of the Calabrian theological institute "San Francesco di Paola". The role of secretary was entrusted to Monsignor Giuseppe Alberti, Bishop of Oppido-Palmi, while Don Pietro Sergi, of the archdiocese of Reggio Calabria-Bova, was confirmed as undersecretary.
Immediately after the election, Maniago thanked his fellow bishops for the trust and esteem they had shown him. He also expressed gratitude to Monsignor Morrone for the work carried out over five years, in particular for the synodal climate, of communion and fraternal collaboration that he helped create within the Conference. The new president assured that the new presidency will be in continuity with that work. Morrone has been called to preside over the Commission for the Doctrine of the Faith, Proclamation and Catechesis and the Commission for the Liturgy.
Claudio Maniago was born on 8 February 1959 and received priestly ordination on 19 April 1984. A student of the Almo Collegio Capranica, he obtained a licentiate in Liturgy at the Pontifical Athenaeum Sant'Anselmo. In the archdiocese of Florence he served as rector of the minor seminary, master of ceremonies to the archbishop, director of the diocesan liturgical office and vicar general, and also taught Liturgy at the Theological Faculty of Central Italy. In 2003 he was elected auxiliary bishop of Florence and in 2014 bishop of Castellaneta.
Pope Francis appointed him metropolitan archbishop of Catanzaro-Squillace on 29 November 2021, and he entered the diocese on 9 January 2022. Between September 2024 and March 2025 he was also apostolic administrator of Crotone-Santa Severina. The liturgy is the field to which he has devoted much of his service to the Italian Church: from 2015 to 2021 he presided over the Episcopal Commission for the Liturgy of the Italian Episcopal Conference and the Center for Liturgical Action, and in 2016 he was appointed a member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. On 26 May last, the General Assembly of the CEI re-elected him president of the Commission for the Liturgy.
The election comes a few weeks after the Conference's autumn session, held on 10 and 11 September, in which the revision of its own Statute was approved, which until then had been the one drawn up in 1982. On the day of his entry into Catanzaro, Maniago had entrusted the diocesan community with a message: "We will walk together with humility". Those words, spoken for the diocese of the regional capital, will now accompany a service that will concern all the Churches of Calabria.
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