After decades of service in the Vatican diplomatic corps, Archbishop Joseph Marino has come home to Birmingham.
It’s a long way from St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Ensley to a position as the Pope’s representative in Malaysia, but Arhcbishop Jospeh Marino has made that journey and many more.
Archbishop Marino worked in the Vatican diplomatic service from 1988 to 2019 and then served as president of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy until 2023. He became an archbishop in 2008 and represented the Holy See in Malaysia, East Timor, and Brunei for six years.
Born in Birmingham in 1953, one of three sons of Salvador Marino, an electrical engineer, and Josephine Marino. He grew up in Ensley and graduated from John Carroll High School in Birmingham in 1971. After high school. Marino earned degrees in philosophy and psychology from the University of Scranton in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Marino was ordained a priest in 1979, for the Diocese of Birmingham.
In an addiitonal academic pursuit, Marino studied theology and biblical theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University while living at the Pontifical North American College from 1975 to 1980. He returned to Birmingham as associate pastor at St. Paul’s Cathedral Parish. In 1984 he entered the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy to prepare for a career in the diplomatic service while obtaining a Doctor of Canon Law degree.
Marino joined the Vatican diplomatic service in the summer of 1988.
His early assignments included stints in the Philippines, Uruguay, and Nigeria. From 1997 to 2004, Marino worked at the Secretariat of State in Rome, where he had responsibility for the Balkan countries.
During the Kosovo war, he accompanied the Vatican’s foreign minister Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, to a meeting with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic on a peace effort on behalf of Pope John Paul II.
In 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war, he accompanied Cardinal Pio Laghi to Washington, D.C., to meet President George W. Bush on another peace mission on behalf of Pope John Paul II—a last-ditch effort to prevent that war.
Marino was working in the United Kingdom when Pope Benedict XVI named him a titular archbishop and apostolic nuncio to Bangladesh. He was consecrated as Archbishop in 2008, at the Cathedral of St. Paul in Birmingham.[
Later Pope Benedict appointed Marino as apostolic nuncio to Malaysia, apostolic nuncio to East Timor, and apostolic delegate to Brunei.
“With Malaysia, diplomatic relations had just begun, and they sent me there to get it going. The primary role of the Vatican ambassador, who’s called Nuncio, is to be the constant and stable link between the Pope and the local church.
“When John Paul II became Pope, I think we had relations with 60 or 70 countries. And because of his presence, magnetism, the whole world was eager to have diplomatic relations with the Holy See,” Archbishop Marino says. “at the present time, I think that we have relations with almost 185 countries.”
One of his final diplomatic assignments was to serve as president of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, which is the school for foreign service that trains the future diplomats of the Vatican. Pope Francis named Marino president of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in 2019. He was the second American to lead the school.
The insitution was founded in 1701, “since the Pope already in the fourth, and fifth century was sending envoys to countries, to the bishops in those countries, and to the governments.
“It’s one of the oldest diplomatic services in the world,” Marino says.
Since its founding, some 1,800 Holy See diplomats have graduated from the academy, among them five popes: Clement XIII (1714), Leo XII (1783), Leo XIII (1832), Benedict XV (1879) and Paul VI (1921).
In 20 years, Archbishop Marino served in countries on four continents.
“All the assignments I’ve been given have been very satisfying and fulfilling in every way, each one a little different,” he told the Scranton journal. “Philippines, Uruguay, Nigeria, Rome, London, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Timor-leste (East Timor), each one brings a little challenge to adapt to the culture. But once you get over that, you discover that we all have the same goals and aspirations in life.”
