Pope Francis has appointed Sliema-born Mgr Antoine Camilleri to the Vatican’s Financial Security Committee. The committee, which brings together various top Vatican officials, aims to prevent and counter money laundering, terrorism financing and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Comprising seven officials, the committee will be headed by the Assessor to the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, Mgr Peter Brian Wells.

Mgr Camilleri, 48, was also nominated by Pope Benedict XVI as undersecretary for the Holy See’s Relations with States in February.

Mgr Camilleri graduated as Doctor of Laws in 1988 and was ordained priest in 1991.

He then served as vice-parish priest at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Gżira, and later read Canon Law at the Pontifical Lateran University.

Having obtained a doctorate, in 1996 he returned to Malta and was appointed Defender of the Bond at the Archdiocesan Ecclesiastical Tribunal until 1997.

Two years later, Mgr Camilleri joined the diplomatic service of the Holy See and served as Apostolic Nuncio in several countries, including Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands, Uganda and Cuba.

He was later assigned to the Secretariat of State in the Vatican as an official in the section for Relations with States and Private Secretary to Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States.

Last month, Pope Francis appointed another Maltese national, Joseph F.X. Zahra, to a Vatican financial committee.

Mr Zahra was appointed president of a Pontifical Commission for Reference on the Organisation of the economic-administrative structure of the Holy See.

The commission will recommend ways to fix the Holy See’s economic and administrative shortcomings.