Pope Francis has appointed his personal travel agent and new cardinal, George Jacob Koovakad, to lead the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, following the death last year of Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot.

Ayuso, a Spanish-born prelate and respected expert in Islam, died on Nov. 25, 2024, after a long illness. He was 72.

The 51-year-old Koovakad, originally from the southern Indian state of Kerala, was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope Francis in December.

Since late 2021, the Vatican diplomat has been the coordinator for papal travels, working in the section for general affairs of the Secretariat of State to arrange Francis’ trips. He also has a doctorate in canon law. 

Cardinal Koovakad, who was in the diplomatic service of the Holy See for 14 years, is part of the Syro-Malabar Church, one of the Catholic faith’s Eastern-rite Churches. He was the first Syro-Malabar priest to be elevated to cardinal directly from the priesthood, according to a spokesperson for the Church.

The Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue was created during the Second Vatican Council, as the Church took a new, formal approach to dialogue with other religions, as expressed in the document Nostra Aetate.

Interreligious dialogue has been a priority of Pope Francis' pontificate, as demonstrated by his trips to non-Christian majority countries and the “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” signed in Abu Dhabi in 2019.

Cardinal Koovakad helped organize several of Pope Francis’ religious dialogue-focused trips, including to Kazakhstan and Bahrain in 2022, to Mongolia in 2023, and to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Singapore in September 2024.