VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — A priest closely linked to Pope Francis and Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández has left his Vatican role and returned to Argentina to serve as a parish priest.

Daniel Pellizzon, a priest of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires who had served as one of the personal secretaries of Pope Francis, has left the Vatican and taken up a pastoral assignment at the parish of San Cayetano de Belgrano in Buenos Aires. The transfer, announced by the parish in late November 2025 and followed by a public notice in early February, comes during Pope Leo XIV’s gradual reshaping of the papal household.

Pellizzon had served in Rome since August 2023 after being appointed as a personal secretary to Pope Francis on July 17, 2023. His arrival in the Vatican coincided closely with the appointment of Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández as prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on July 1, 2023.

After the death of Francis and the election of Pope Leo XIV, Pellizzon remained for several months within the papal staff. During that period he continued to serve as a secretary and served as a substitute for Leo’s principal personal secretary, the Peruvian priest Edgard Rimaycuna.

Leo XIV has since consolidated his own staff. The current papal secretaries are Fr. Rimaycuna and Fr. Marco Billeri, who was called from the Diocese of San Miniato, Italy. According to Michael Haynes, the pope’s decision to appoint Billeri rather than accept a candidate proposed through the Secretariat of State was interpreted as an attempt to ensure that the members of his immediate household were personally chosen by him.

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Although it is customary for a new pope to select his own secretaries rather than maintain those of his predecessor, Pellizzon’s departure attracted attention because of his longstanding connections with Cardinal Fernández. According to Haynes, the transfer might have implications for Fernández’s future in the Vatican.

However, the cardinal’s current five-year mandate as prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is scheduled to continue until September 2028, assuming Pope Leo allows him to complete the term, as is very likely the case. Discussions between the Holy See and the Society of Saint Pius X, in which the doctrinal dicastery plays a central role, are a possible reason for preserving institutional stability.

Haynes also reports that “before entering the priesthood, Pellizzon worked with Cardinal Bergoglio during his tenure as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, helping him organize his personal archives. As a result, he received a personal letter of congratulations from Pope Francis upon his priestly ordination in 2018, during which Archbishop Fernández delivered the homily.”

On December 5, 2025, the Catholic outlet El Wanderer presented the Pellizzon case as yet another example of the broad system of internal protection and promotion linked to the Francis–Fernández network. The author noted, referring to Pellizzon: “It is strange that someone who was expelled from the Buenos Aires seminary (let us draw a merciful veil over the reason) and later rescued by pontifical mercy and reluctantly ordained a priest by Cardinal Poli in 2018, should have obtained such rapid promotions and privileges.”

This removal appears to be consistent with Leo XIV’s decision to reshape the papal household, which is the body of people who assist the Pope by managing ceremonies and protocols of various kinds and, indirectly, the Secretariat of State.

The papal household is a highly sensitive curial office since it also handles the Pope’s confidential documents, as demonstrated by the “Vatileaks” scandal that occurred under Benedict XVI.

Although not yet officially announced, sources indicate that Bishop Petar Rajič, Apostolic Nuncio to Italy, is being transferred to serve as the new prefect of the papal household—a position left vacant since February 28, 2023, when it was relinquished by Georg Gänswein.

In Rajič’s place, the Pope is said to have appointed as the new Nuncio to Italy and San Marino the controversial Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, current Substitute for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State. This change of guard affects not only the Secretariat of State but also the papal household. According to Paul VI’s 1968 motu proprio Pontificalis domus, which still regulates this office, the Substitute of the Secretariat of State is the first among the so‑called ecclesiastical members of the papal family.

The papal household is in fact divided into two sections: the chapel, which concerns the Pope as the spiritual head of the Catholic Church and assists him in liturgical and ceremonial matters; and the family, which concerns the Pope as the sovereign of Vatican City and includes clerics and laypersons who perform roles of representation, service, and protocol in civil and official ceremonies.

Contrary to what several analysts have claimed in recent weeks, these moves by Pope Leo do not necessarily indicate a genuine intention to reform the Curia or the Secretariat of State, but more likely an attempt to remove a number of compromising figures placed there by Francis—and the papal household is certainly among the most delicate of positions.