Leo XIV Appoints Italian bishop: "Almost Everything Divides Me From Traditional Catholics"

Today, Leo XIV appointed Monsignor Michele Morandi as the new Bishop of Faenza-Modigliana, an Italian diocese with 130,000 Catholics and 80 parishes.
Born in Alfonsine, Italy, in 1976, he was ordained a priest in 2003 and has served as a parish priest, rector of the diocesan seminary and vicar general of the diocese.
Closed Seminary Is "Excellent Starting Point"
As rector of the seminary, he wrote in 2024 for the 70 anniversary of the large seminary building in Faenza. The seminarians now study in Bologna. The building is called the 'former seminary' and used as a library, a school, a workplace and an art space, and has become a "secular place".
For Monsignor Morandi, this was an "excellent starting point", as from that moment on, things were "no longer tainted by clerical and collegial imagery or clouded by a curtain of incense."
Identification with the Synodal Process
Monsignor Morandi took part in the Italian Church’s national synodal assembly in Rome. In a diocesan article from 2025…More