VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Leo XIV appointed Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín as the new prefect of the Dicastery for Charity.
On March 12, Marin de San Martin was named to replace Cardinal Konrad Krajewski as head of the Vatican office responsible for coordinating charitable initiatives in the name of the Roman Pontiff. Krajewski has now been appointed archbishop of Łódź.
Marín de San Martín belongs to the Augustinian order, the same religious order as Leo. Since 2021, the Spanish prelate has served as undersecretary of the General Secretariat of the Synod, where he was involved in organizing the Synod on Synodality initiated under Pope Francis.
In April 2024, during the 53rd National Week for Consecrated Life in Spain, he spoke about a need for renewal within the Church. He stated that “renewal is not viable as restoration; we cannot go back to the past. If I insist on doing so, the only things I will experience are frustration and melancholy: we learn from the past, but we look toward the future.”
He also described synodality as a “development connected to the Second Vatican Council” and “particularly to the dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium.” This appears to place Marín de San Martín’s view on the Church in continuity with the ecclesiological reform movement that seems to be shaping Leo’s pontificate.
During the same intervention, he emphasized the role of the laity in giving direction to synodality rather than grounding it in traditional doctrine, stating, “We need listening. This is the Synod.”
Marín de San Martín was appointed a bishop in 2021. With his new role overseeing the Vatican’s charitable activity, Pope Leo conferred to him the dignity of archbishop. He will most likely be among the next cardinals.
Pope Francis appointed Krajewski, 62, as his almoner only 4 1/2 months after his election, on August 3, 2013. In that role, he gained prominence for personally delivering aid to the poor and peoples affected by war.
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Before Krajewski’s appointment as almoner, he worked primarily in the field of liturgy. His public profile increased significantly after he assumed responsibility for the Dicastery for Charity. Despite that visibility, he has generally avoided intervening in doctrinal controversies or public debates within the Church.
One of the few occasions in which he commented on a social controversy occurred in August 2019, during a so-called “equality march” in Poland associated with the LGBT movement. On that occasion, he expressed criticism of the event but also stressed that “Christ died for all people involved and that they should be welcomed into the cathedral.” In May 11, 2019, he entered a utility manhole in Rome to restore electricity to a building illegally occupied by migrants and political activists after power had been cut due to more than €300,000 in unpaid bills. The case caused a major stir in the Italian media.
During the COVID pandemic, while Cardinal Angelo De Donatis ordered every church in Rome to close, Krajewski took the opposite path. Within a day, he unlocked and opened his own titular church, Santa Maria Immacolata in the Esquiline district, defying the shutdown.
“It’s an act of disobedience, yes – I exposed the Blessed Sacrament and opened my church,” Krajewski said in 2020 when explaining his decision to keep his Roman titular church open during the pandemic. “It didn’t happen under fascism, it didn’t happen under Russian or Soviet rule in Poland – the churches were not closed.”
More recently, he became part of a public controversy linked to the World Day of the Poor on November 16, 2025. On that occasion, Pope Leo XIV shared a meal with a group of people identified as poor. Among the wider group of guests were more than 30 individuals who identified as “transgender,” including Italian LGBT activist Alessia Nobile.
The Washington Post questioned why none of those individuals appeared to have been seated at the Pope’s table. Two anonymous sources suggested that this could indicate “discrimination,” particularly when compared with a similar event in 2023 when Pope Francis reportedly sat beside “transgender” participants, but Krajewski rejected the criticism.
With his transfer to Łódź, Krajewski returns to his native city. The archdiocese is one of the principal ecclesiastical jurisdictions in central Poland.