The Holy See appoints a new bishop for Malaga: this is the chosen one

The Holy See, the central governing body of the Catholic Church and Vatican City, has announced the official appointment of the bishop of the diocese of Teruel and Albarracín, José Antonio Satué, as Jesús Catalá's successor in Malaga. As SUR reported on 26 May, Satué was the most talked about candidate to take over the Diocese of Malaga after Catalá resigned on 22 December when he reached the age of 75, the age established for retirement from episcopal duties.

Catalá suffered a serious health crisis just after Easter, when a severe septicaemia after undergoing bladder and prostate surgery kept him in the ICU for several days and caused fears for his life. As he is already a consecrated and practising bishop, there is a two-month deadline for Satué to take possession of his new diocese, so he will land in Malaga in September.

Satué, 57, was consecrated by the Cardinal Archbishop of Barcelona, Juan José Omella, on 18 September 2021 to head the diocese of Teruel. Born on 6 February 1968 in Huesca, he spent his childhood in the town of Sesa in Huesca. In 1987, at the age of 19, he qualified as a technician specialising in industrial electronics. However, thanks to the testimony of priests and the Bishop of Huesca, Javier Osés, he discovered his calling to the priesthood, which led him to enter the metropolitan seminary of Zaragoza that same year.

He was ordained on 4 September 1993 by Bishop Osés in the cathedral of Huesca, in whose diocese he was vicar general, media delegate, judicial vicar and dean of the cathedral, among other posts in different parishes. Last year, he also gave the proclamation of Holy Week in Huesca. In 2015 he was assigned to Rome as a member of the Congregation for the Clergy, where he worked as an official until his appointment as bishop in 2021.

Satué is a prelate aligned with Pope Francis’s approach. In fact, the now deceased pontiff appointed him in 2022 as a judge in a canonical process ordered to be opened against a teacher at an Opus Dei school in Vizcaía. The Church had previously acquitted the teacher in 2015 of charges of continued sexual abuse against a student - charges for which he was, however, convicted by the Spanish judiciary and sentenced to two years in prison, a sentence he ultimately did not have to serve. The appearance of this student in the documentary ‘Amén’, featuring Pope Francis and directed by Jordi Évole, led the former Pope to order the reopening of a canonical case against this teacher.

Two years ago, Satué joined the Dicastery of Bishops, where he worked closely with the current Pope Leo XIV, as Cardinal Robert Prevost has also been in charge of this Vatican department since 2023, before being appointed as Francis' successor on 8 May.

In a recent interview with 'El Diario de Teruel', when asked about rumours of his appointment as bishop for Malaga, Satué replied, “The day the Church asks me to go and serve elsewhere, I will be available.” In that interview, he also expressed great satisfaction with his four years as bishop in Teruel, a small and “close-knit” diocese, and he revealed his desire to carry out his ecclesiastical work “like a village priest who helps real people with small matters and who tries to be a reflection of that love and tenderness I experience from God at every moment”.

José Antonio Satué enjoys the support of Cardinal Omella, who consecrated him as a bishop, and of José Cobo from Madrid - two highly influential figures in the Spanish Episcopal Conference today. His name has even been mentioned for other dioceses of greater weight in the structure of the Church in Spain, but now he will soon be on his way to Malaga.