Cameroon, E. Guinea: Mgr Jose Avelino Bettencourt appointed new Apostolic Nuncio.

He was appointed by Pope Francis, yesterday August 30, 2023. Mgr Jose Avelino previously served as Apostolic Nuncio to Georgia and Armania.

In 2018, he was named titular Archbishop of Cittanova, a commune in the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria in the Italian Region Calabriaand raised to the Office of Apostolic Nuncio. 

Prior to the promotion, he was Chief of Protocol at the Secretariat of State. On November 14, 2012, His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, appointed Archbishop Jose Avelino and priest from the Archdiocese of Ottawa, Canada, as Chief of Protocol of the Holy See’s Secretariat of State.

Meanwhile, Mgr Jose Avelino Bettercourt was ordained as a priest in 1993. He entered the Holy See’s diplomatic service in 1999, serving in the Nunciature of the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC. He was later called back to work at the Secretariat of State in 2012.

Before his appointment, Mgr Jose Avelino Bettercourt was Nunciature Counselor in charge of state relations section of the Secretariat of State.

Monsignor Jose Avelino was born in Velas, Azores, in Portugal, May 23, 1962. He is said to have settled in Canada with his family at a young age.

He graduated with degrees in Literature and Theology, from the University of Ottawa. He later obtained a doctorate in Canon Law from the Pontifical Gregorian University.