Fabio Baggio CS (born 15 January 1965) is an Italian Catholic priest. Since 2017, he has served as one of the Vatican's officials in charge of migrants and refugees. He has spent his career as a missionary, including eight years in Latin America and eight years in the Philippines.^[1] He supports improved legal entrance for migrants and refugees.

Biography

Fabio Baggio was born on 15 January 1965 in Bassano del Grappa in the Italian province of Vicenza. He joined the Scalabrian Missionaries in 1976, studied at their seminary in his native city, and took his perpetual vows in 1991. He was ordained a priest in 1992.^[2]

He earned a bachelor's degree in theology and then a licentiate and a doctorate in church history from the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1998. From 1995 to 1997, while a pastor in Santiago de Chile, he was councillor to the Migrations Commission of the Episcopal Conference of Chile. From 1997 to 2002 he was director of Migrations Department of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, taking on in 1999 additional responsibilities for evangelization on behalf of the Pontifical Missions of Argentina.^[2]

From 1999 to 2010 he taught at the Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires, the Institute of Theology of São Paulo, the University of Manila, and the Maryhill School of Theology in Quezon City, Philippines, where he was director of the Scalabrini Migration Center and of the Asian Pacific Migration Journal.^[2]

From 2000 to 2017 he taught at the Scalabrini International Migration Institute within the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Urbaniana University and in 2013 he became its dean and a full professor.^[2]

Beginning on 1 January 2017 he worked as one of the undersecretaries of the Migrants and Refugees Section of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development alongside Michael Czerny.^[3][4] On 26 August 2021, he was named one of three members of the Vatican's COVID-19 commission.^[5] On 23 April 2022, Pope Francis named him the sole undersecretary of his section and enlarged his responsibilities to include special projects.^[6]

In 2019 he described his section's message:^[1]

So many people who arrive from outside, from cultures different from our own, from expressions of Christian or Catholic life different from ours, are a source of enrichment, and not of impoverishment, for us. Thus, instead of creating the fear of an invasion, which one hears many speak about, the facts should make us want to encounter them. If it was truly my brother or sister, would I close the door?

During a visit to Albania in July 2019 he said that interreligious dialogue could help resolve the ethical challenges posed by migration, that universal principles could be found within religions to develop a shared ethical response to the problems of social integration posed by population movements.^[7]

References

Additional sources

• "Padre Baggio: «L'apertura all'altro, formula di vita»". Roma Sette (Interview) (in Italian). Interviewed by Andrea Acali. 16 November 2020.
• "Ritratto di padre Baggio, l'uomo del team del Papa per le migrazioni". ACI Stampa (Interview) (in Italian). Interviewed by Andrea Gagliarducci. 22 April 2017.
• "Fabio Baggio, subsecretario de Refugiados del Vaticano: 'No podemos responder que no al inmigrante'". Religion Confidencial (in Spanish). 18 December 2017.
• "El Papa Francisco llama a abrir más puertas legales a migrantes y refugiados". Diario de Cádiz (in Spanish). 14 November 2019.
• Beltramo Álvarez, Andrés (26 November 2018). "Fabio Baggio, la voz y las manos del Papa en el Mediterráneo" (in Spanish). Cope ABC.

External links

• Migrants and Refugees Section