Vatican City, December 22 (PHC -Mercopress) -- Pope Francis has received Argentina’s new ambassador to the Vatican, Eduardo Valdes, during a ceremony at Vatican City.

A former Cabinet Chief at the Foreign Ministry during Rafael Bielsa's tenure, Valdés will be replacing Juan Pablo Cafiero who has held the position since 2008.

Before leaving Buenos Aires, Valdes told reporters that the state of relations between the Argentina and the Vatican “have never been so good,” praising ties between President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

Eduardo Valdes graduated from Buenos Aires University School Law and has MBA degrees in International Relations from the Universities of Murcia and Georgetown.

The Argentinian-born Pope also Sunday named French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran as the new camerlengo (or chamberlain), the cardinal who runs the Vatican after the death or resignation of a pontiff.

Tauran, who is 71, succeeds Italian Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who turned 80 this month, the age when cardinals can no longer enter a conclave to elect a pope. Should the reigning pope pass away or resign, the camerlengo runs the ordinary affairs of the Vatican during the so-called “sede vacante.”

It was Tauran, as a senior cardinal deacon, who said the words “Habemus Papam” (We have a pope) from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica on the night of Francis' election on March 13, 2013 and then announced the name of the new pope to the world.