Octavi Vilà will be the new archbishop of Barcelona

BarcelonaThe current bishop of Girona and former abbot of Poblet, Octavi Vilà i Mayo, will be the new archbishop of Barcelona, a position in which he will succeed Joan Josep Omella, who will announce his farewell today. The Vatican's decision had been made for some time and yesterday Omella communicated it to the Episcopal Council. Despite the secrecy surrounding this type of change, for weeks there had been speculation about Vilà as the most likely candidate.

Vilà represents the more pro-Catalan line within the Church. Therefore, it breaks with the trend of recent years in which figures from outside the country had been appointed, although always with some link to Catalan identity. Already during the visit of Pope Leo XIII to Catalonia, his commitment to the Catalan language and his knowledge, and recognition, of the country's own religious reality could be verified.

Octavi Vilà (Tarragona, 1961) is, in ecclesial terms, a young bishop, who has not even been in Girona for three years yet, where he was appointed by Pope Francis. He assumed the position of bishop of Girona after occupying that of abbot of the monastery of Poblet for almost a decade. A historian by training, he had entered as a monk at Poblet in 2006, at the age of 45. Vilà has been a member of the Commission for Consecrated Life of the Spanish Episcopal Conference since July 2024.