OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, MAR 23, 2003 (VIS) - The Holy Father:

- Appointed Bishop Peter Fernando of Tuticorin, India as metropolitan archbishop of Madurai (area 8,910, population 5,889, Catholics 300,244, priests 184, religious 1,022), India. He succeeds Archbishop Marianus Arokiasamy whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same archdiocese the Holy Father accepted upon having reached the age limit.

- Appointed Fr. Joannis Spiteris, O.F.M.Cap., as archbishop of Corfu, Zante, Cefalonia, Greece and apostolic administrator "ad nutum Sanctae Sedis" of Thessaloniki, Greece. The archbishop-elect was born in Corfu in 1940 and was ordained a priest in 1968. The Holy Father accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the same archdiocese and from the same apostolic vicariate presented by Archbishop Anthonios Varthalitis, A.A., upon having reached the age limit.

- Appointed Bishop Philip Anyolo of Kericho, Kenya as bishop of Homa Bay (area 7,778, population 1,600,000, Catholics 333,694, priests 37, religious 432), Kenya.

- Appointed Fr. Emmanuel Okombo of the clergy of the diocese of Bungoma, Kenya as bishop of Kericho (area 4,800, population 1,480,906, Catholics 198,653, priests 30, religious 110), Kenya. The bishop-elect was born in 1942 in Bungoma, Kenya and was ordained a priest in 1972.

- Appointed Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as his special envoy to the celebrations of the 750th anniversary of the canonization of St. Stanislaw, bishop and martyr, which will take place on May 11, 2003 in Krakow, Poland.

- Appointed Cardinal Mario Francesco Pompedda, prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature, as his special envoy to the celebrations of the seventh centenary of the death of St. Ivo, patron of jurists, which will take place in Treguier, France May 16-18, 2003.

- Appointed Archbishop Jean-Claude Perisset, apostolic nuncio in Romania, as apostolic nuncio in Moldova.

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