OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, NOV 10, 2000 (VIS) - The Holy Father:

- Appointed Bishop Ricardo Antonio Surinach Carreras, auxiliary of Ponce (area 2,045, population 592,720, Catholics 474,200, priests 120, permanent deacons 71, religious 298), Puerto Rico, as bishop of the same diocese. He succeeds Bishop Juan Fremiot Torres Oliver whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.

- Accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the archdiocese of Braga, Portugal, presented by Auxiliary Bishop Carlos Francisco Martins Pinheiro, upon having reached the age limit.

- Appointed as auxiliary bishops of Braga (area 2,832, population 900,000, Catholics 881,000, priests 599, permanent deacons 8, religious 1,000), Portugal, Fr. Antonio dos Santos Marto of the clergy of the diocese of Vila Real, professor of theology at the Portuguese Catholic University in Porto and Fr. Antonino Eugenio Fernandes Dias, rector of the diocesan seminary of Viana do Castelo. Bishop-elect dos Santos Marto was born in Tronco, Portugal, in 1947 and ordained a priest in 1971. Bishop-elect Fernandes Dias was born in Longos Vales, Portugal, in 1949 and ordained a priest in 1974.

- Appointed Fr. Cherubim Dambui, vicar general of the diocese of Wewak, Papua New Guinea, as auxiliary of Port Moresby (area 12,244, population 462,767, Catholics 137,820, priests 55, religious 248), Papua New Guinea. The bishop-elect was born in Timbunke, Papua new Guinea, in 1948 and ordained a priest in 1974.

- Erected the "sui iuris" mission of Baku, Azerbaijan, with the aim of contributing to a more suitable religious assistance to Catholics in Aberbaijan, whose pastoral care up to now had been entrusted to the Apostolic Administrator of the Caucasus of the Latins. He appointed Fr. Josef Daniel Pravda, S.D.B. as ecclesiastical superior of the same mission.

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