Patrick Coveney (29 July 1934 – 22 October 2022) was an Irish prelate of the Catholic Church who worked in the diplomatic service of the Holy See from 1966 to 2009.
He became an archbishop in 1985 and fulfilled several assignments as Apostolic Nuncio, including stints in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, New Zealand, and Greece.
Coveney was born in Tracton, County Cork, Ireland,[1] studied at Maynooth College (obtaining the academic degree of Bachelor of Arts in classical languages and literature), and the Pontifical Irish College, Rome, Italy (obtaining the Licentiate of Sacred Theology), and was ordained, aged twenty-four, as a priest on 21 February 1959 by the archbishop vicegerent (deputy vicar general of Rome) Luigi Traglia in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran.
[6] Coveney served with the rank of Secretary in the Apostolic Nunciature in Buenos Aires from 1972 to 1976, returning then to the Secretariat of State in the Vatican.
While based in Wellington, he also represented the Holy See at the inauguration of Chen Shui-bian as president of the Republic of China (Taiwan) on 18 May 2004.