Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, President of the Governorate of Vatican City State and President of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State, was born on 1 October 1942 in Foglizzo, in the Province of Turin, Italy.
He was ordained a priest on29 June 1966. He holds a licence in pastoral theology, a doctorate in canon law and studied at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy.
He entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1971 and served at the pontifical representations in Sudan, Turkey, Venezuela and at the Holy See mission to the United Nations in Geneva.
On 17 October 1987, he was nominated titular Archbishop of Urbisaglia and pro-nuncio in Ghana, in Togo and in Benin. He received episcopal ordination on 28 November 1987.
On 12 January 1991, he became apostolic nuncio in Rwanda, in the most acute phase of the civil war between the Hutus and the Tutsis. In March 1995 he was appointed Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva and on 9 August 1997 to the World Trade Organization.
On 27 December 2000, he was appointed apostolic nuncio in Mexico. In this capacity he welcomed Pope John Paul II on his fifth visit to the country in 2002.
On 11 January 2007, he was appointed apostolic nuncio in Italy and in the Republic of San Marino.
On 3 September 2011, he became President of the Governorate of Vatican City State and President of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State.
On 13 April 2013 he was made a member of the group of cardinals established to advise Pope Francis in the government of the universal Church and to study a plan for revising the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia,‘Pastor Bonus’.
Created and proclaimed Cardinal by Benedict XVI in the consistory of 18 February 2012, of the Deaconry of Santi Vito, Modesto e Crescenzia (Sts. Vitus, Modestus and Crescentia).
Member of:
• Congregations: for Bishops, for the Evangelization of Peoples
• Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace