Franco Coppola

Franco Coppola (born in Maglie on 31 March 1957) is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who has been Apostolic Nuncio to Belgium and Luxembourg since 2021. He has served in the diplomatic service of the Holy See since 1993.

Biography Coppola was born in Maglie on 31 March 1957. He was ordained priest on 12 September 1981. He was incardinated in the diocese of Otranto. He attended the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy while at the same time studying for a doctorate in canon law at a pontifical university.

Diplomatic career He entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See on 1 July 1993, he served at the pontifical representations in Lebanon, Colombia, Poland and at the Section for Relations with States of the Secretariat of State.

He served with the rank of Counsellor at the Nunciature in Burundi.

On 16 July 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Apostolic Nuncio to Burundi and Titular Archbishop of Vinda.

He was consecrated by Pope Benedict XVI with Cardinals Tarcisio Bertone and William Levada as co-consecrators on 12 September 2009, the twenty-eighth anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood, along with Gabriele Giordano Caccia, Giorgio Corbellini and Pietro Parolin.

On 31 January 2014, Pope Francis named him Apostolic Nuncio to the Central African Republic. On 2 April 2014, Pope Francis named Coppola Nuncio to Chad.

On 9 July 2016, Pope Francis appointed him Nuncio to Mexico. In December 2017, he forcefully reiterated Francis' criticism of the Mexican bishops saying that "The Church here in Mexico has been lagging behind and has continued to give valid answers for the last century, without realizing that time has meanwhile gone on."

Speaking in 2021, at the opening of the Mexican bishops' conference biannual meeting, he urged the country's bishops to "look reality in the eye" as the country's non-Catholic population increases and nonreligious numbers rise. He spoke of several worrying trends in the 2020 census which showed the number of people identifying as nonreligious nearly doubling to 8.1% of the population, while another 2.5% of the population considered themselves religious, but without any professed confession. Protestants and evangelicals grew from 7.5% of the population in 2010 to 11.2% of the population in 2020.

On 15 November he was named Nuncio to Belgium and on 14 December 2021 he was named Nuncio to Luxembourg. On the return flight to Rome following Pope Francis' 2024 trip to Belgium the pontiff said "'abortion is murder'" and that "'“science says that just one month from conception, all the organs are present'". He compared the doctors to hitmen. Contemporaneously, Belgium was considered whether to expand access from the first 12 to 18 weeks. In response Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said he would summon Archbishop Coppola to protest the pope's remarks as an “unacceptable” interference in his country’s domestic affairs.