OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, JUL 9, 2004 (VIS) - The Holy Father:

 - Appointed Bishop Santiago Garcia Aracil of Jaen, Spain, as metropolitan archbishop of Merida-Badajoz (area 17,405, population 578,638, Catholics 575,661, priests 327, religious 937), Spain. The archbishop-elect was born in Valencia, Spain in 1940 and was ordained a priest in 1963. He succeeds Archbishop Antonio Montero Moreno whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same archdiocese was accepted upon having reached the age limit.

- Appointed Msgr. Gustavo Rodolfo Mendoza Hernandez, chancellor of the Curia and pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in the archdiocese of Guatemala City, Guatemala and Fr. Gonzalo De Villa y Vasquez, S.J., consultant and rector of Rafael Landivar University in Guatemala City, as auxiliary bishops of the same archdiocese (area 2,591, population 3,214,280, Catholics 2,249,056, priests 515, permanent deacons 3, religious 2,416). Bishop-elect Mendoza was born in 1934 in Guatemala City and was ordained a priest in 1958. Bishop-elect De Villa was born in 1954 in Madrid, Spain and was ordained a priest in 1983.
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