The Hague - The Holy Father has accepted the resignation from the post of Apostolic Nuncio to the Netherlandssubmitted by Archbishop Jean-Marie Speich, Titular Archbishop of Sulci, making use of the option provided by Article 20, § 2, of the Regulations for Pontifical Representations. The rule grants nuncios the ability to submit their resignation upon reaching the age of 70 (and not 75), in line with the retirement age for diplomats. The decision, however, appears sudden: Speich turned 70 in June 2025, just a few months after the appointment he received from Pope Francis. If he had truly planned to step down on turning 70, he could have asked to remain in Slovenia until June 2025 and take leave then. That did not happen: less than a year after his appointment as Nuncio to the Netherlands, Nuncio Speich has resigned. He had been appointed on 12 April 2025: Pope Francis had designated him Apostolic Nuncio to the Netherlands.
In recent years Speich had been drawn into the turmoil of the Rupnik scandal because, when Silere non possum brought the Slovenian Jesuit’s affairs to light, it was Speich who had to deal with Rupnik when he asked to be received into the diocese of Capodistria.
On 13 June 2023, a full month before being dismissed from the Society of Jesus, Rupnik sent a letter to Bishop Jurij Bizjak, then Bishop of Capodistria, with whom he had resumed contact for some time. In the letter Rupnik asked to be received ad experimentum in his diocese of origin. Bizjak consulted Nuncio Jean-Marie Speich. Speich told Bishop Bizjak: «Incardination in Capodistria is an excellent solution. No problem, because there are no convictions anyway». Yet there was the conviction for having absolved the accomplice in a sin against the sixth commandment, with an accompanying excommunication, later revoked by Bergoglio in person; and the scandal, of global proportions, was also raging over the accusations made by consecrated women, which could not be examined in court because Francis did not want a trial. Jean-Marie Speich, moreover, was the first bishop ordained by Pope Francis.
It is well known, however, that Speich was very close to Marko Ivan Rupnik, who helped make several of his “most loyal” men bishops, such as the current president of the Slovenian Bishops’ Conference.
His story
Jean-Marie Speich was born in Strasbourg on 15 June 1955 to Xavier Speich and Marie Thérèse Goetz, and lived in Willgottheim. On 9 October 1982 he was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Strasbourg.
From 1982 to 1984 he served as assistant parish priest at the parish of Saint Vincent de Paul in the Archdiocese of Strasbourg. In 1984 he entered the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy. He obtained a doctorate in canon law and a licentiate in theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University. On 1 July 1986 he entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See and served at pontifical representations in Haiti, Nigeria, Bolivia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Spain and Cuba. On 27 March 2008 he was appointed head of the Section for Francophone States in the Secretariat of State of the Holy See.
On 17 August 2013 Pope Francis appointed him Titular Archbishop of Sulci and Apostolic Nuncio to Ghana. On 24 October of the same year he received episcopal ordination from Pope Francis, with Jean-Pierre Grallet, Archbishop of Strasbourg, and Antonio Mattiazzo, Archbishop-Bishop of Padua, as co-consecrators. On 19 March 2019 Pope Francisappointed him Apostolic Nuncio to Slovenia and Apostolic Delegate to Kosovo. After the entire Rupnik scandal, just weeks before he died, on 12 April 2025, Pope Francis appointed him Apostolic Nuncio to the Netherlands. On 21 February 2026 he submitted his resignation, less than a year after that appointment.
H.B.
Silere non possum