Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – Fr. Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen, OFMConv, is the new Secretary General of the Pontifical Missionary Union (PMU), as well as Director of the International Center for Missionary Animation (CIAM) and Director of Agenzia Fides. Conventual Franciscan Friar of Vietnamese nationality, he was appointed by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and on 1 May 2021 begins his service at the Pontifical Mission Societies, for a-five-year peiod.
Fr. Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen succeeds Fr. Fabrizio Meroni, PIME, who concluded his mandate on November 30, 2020, then extended until March 31, 2021.
In his greetings to the National Directors of the PMS, Fr. Meroni, in thanking for a five-year period of mutual collaboration, expressed his hope that a person from Asia, Africa or Oceania could reach the leadership of the PMU, as a sign of the universality of the Church's mission.
Fr. Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen told Agenzia Fides: "I would like to express my deep gratitude to the Holy Father, a guide and inspiration for the mission of the Church in this difficult time. I sincerely thank Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle, Prefect of Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and Archbishop Giampiero Dal Toso, Assistant Secretary of the Congregation and President of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS), for their trust and for the appointment. I thank my predecessor Fr. Fabrizio Meroni, PIME, for the work carried out with wisdom and dedication. Special thanks also go to the General Secretaries of the other Pontifical Mission Societies, Fr. Tadeusz Nowak OMI, Sr. Roberta Tremarelli AMSS, Fr. Guy Bognon PSS, as well as to the National Directors of the PMS for a benevolent and fraternal welcome. I will try to do my best to carry out our common work of missionary animation of the universal and local Churches, always with enthusiasm, creativity, and in a spirit of communion and collaboration with all.
May the Lord, through the intercession of Mary Immaculate, mother of Christ and his disciples, of Saint Joseph and of the blessed founders of the missionary Societies, help us and always give us his Holy Spirit in the mission entrusted to us".
Born in 1970 in Qui Nhon (Vietnam), priest of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, Fr. Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen is a member of the religious province of Warsaw (Poland). He is Professor of Exegesis and Biblical Theology at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of St Bonaventure in Urbe (Seraphicum) and is an invited professor at the Pontifical Urbaniana University and at the Pontifical Gregorian University. He is an Honorary Research Associate of the University of Divinity, Catholic Theological College (Melbourne, Australia), where he taught from 2006 to 2011.
He holds a Master of Science in Engineering from the Tula State Technical University (1994, Russia). After entering the Order of Friars Minor Conventual for formation, he obtained a Baccalaureate in Theology at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of St. Bonaventure 2001, year in which he made his solemn profession in the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, and a Licentiate in Biblical Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in 2003, the year in which he was ordained a priest, in Rome. In 2006 he obtained a Doctorate in Biblical Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University.
He was Dean of the Pontifical Theological Faculty of St. Bonaventure Seraphicum, from 2016 to 2021 and vice-dean of the same Faculty from 2013 to 2016. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of AVEPRO (the Holy See’s Agency for the Evaluation and Promotion of Quality in Ecclesiastical Universities and Faculties ), appointed by Pope Francis for the five-year period 2018-2023.
He is the founding Director of FIATS – "Franciscan Institute for Asian Theological Studies", established in 2015 at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of St Bonaventure.
He is the author of numerous books and scientific articles and is fluent in seven languages. (PA)
(Agenzia Fides, 1/5/2021)