Fr Antonio Ammirati is the new Secretary General of the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE). He was elected by the Plenary Assembly of the European body which took place in Belgrade from 24 to 27 June at the invitation of Msgr Ladislav Nemet, Archbishop of Belgrade and Vice-President of the CCEE. Until now Deputy Secretary General and spokesperson for the CCEE, Fr Ammirati will remain in office for five years and will take the place of Fr Martin Michaliček, who has been the Secretary General since 2018. “To Fr Martin – a statement issued today by the CCEE reads –, the bishops expressed gratitude for his availability and work over the years at the service of the Churches that are in Europe”.
Born in Crotone on 19 May 1974, Fr Ammirati was ordained a priest on 17 April 1999 for the Archdiocese of Crotone–Santa Severina in the Italian region of Calabria. Previously the General Secretary of the Diocesan Curia of Crotone, he is also a director, publicist, journalist and television author. From 2002 to 2014, he worked at the National Office for Social Communications of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), particularly in the management of the television sector and as director of transmissions of the Sunday Mass on RaiUno. He was a consultant of TG1 for the direction of Papal celebrations and a consultant of the religious programmes of RAI. He has worked in international cooperation as coordinator of the CEI’s Service for Charitable Action in Third World Countries. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Communication and Culture Foundation of the CEI; he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Italian Foundation “Ente dello Spettacolo”. From 2014 to 2020, he was editorial consultant, author and director at the CEI’s broadcaster TV2000 for which he also curated the events presided over by the Pope, in collaboration with Vatican Media. At the CCEE, he was also responsible for the Youth Symposium which took place in Krakow in October 2022 and he was the coordinator of the organising Committee of the Continental Assembly of the Synod which took place in Prague from 5 to 12 February 2023. He oversaw the transfer of the CCEE headquarters from St. Gallen to Rome and the establishment of the CCEE Foundation in Italy. On 26 June, at the Plenary Assembly in Belgrade, he was elected Secretary General of the CCEE for a five-year term.