Giovanni Lajolo position held Secretary for Relations with States
Bishop
On 3 October 1988, Lajolo was appointed Secretary of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See and Titular Archbishop of Caesariana by Pope John Paul II. He received his episcopal consecration on 6 January 1989 from John Paul himself, with archbishops Edward Idris Cassidy and José Tomás Sánchez serving as co-consecrators, in St. Peter's Basilica. Lajolo was later named Nuncio to Germany on 7 December 1995, and Secretary for Relations with States on 7 October 2003. As Secretary, he served as the foreign minister of the Vatican.Secretary for Relations with States
He served as the Secretary for Relations with States in the Secretariat of State, or foreign minister of the Holy See, from 2003 until his appointment as president in 2006. He speaks Italian, German, English and French.
At a 2004 conference Archbishop Lajolo said that perfect religious freedom does not exist in any country in the world. "Even in states in which the right to religious freedom is taken very seriously," he said, perfection is missing, often because a concern for church-state separation leads to penalising religious activity in the public sphere. He went on to say he said, government and taxation policies may limit the rights of parents to choose a religious education for their children or may penalise the charitable work of the church by not recognising its nonprofit status. Attempts to ban religiously motivated positions from public policy debates are also infringements on religious freedom, he said. Archbishop Lajolo and other speakers at the conference also voiced concern about the increasing threats to Christians in Iraq and in other countries with a Muslim majority following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.In 2005 Archbishop Lajolo was awarded Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
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