PATH TO PEACE AWARD 2007

VATICAN CITY, JUN 5, 2007 (VIS) - In New York on June 12 the Path to Peace Foundation will bestow the 2007 Path to Peace Award on Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, president of the 61st session of the U.N. General Assembly. Every year, the foundation awards the prize in recognition of acts of individual leadership in the international community. The president of the foundation, which was founded in 1991, is Archbishop Celestino Migliore, apostolic nuncio and Holy See permanent Observer to the United Nations.

  A communique released by the foundation explains that this year's award is in recognition of Haya Rashed Al Khalifa's "dedicated efforts on behalf of peace and development."

  Ms. Al Khalifa, who is from the Kingdom of Bahrain, was "one of the first women to practice law in her country," the communique reads. "In addition she has served her country as ambassador to France, from 2000 to 2004, and as non-resident ambassador to Belgium, Switzerland and Spain. Over the same period she was the Kingdom's permanent representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)."
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OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, JUN 5, 2007 (VIS) - The Holy Father:

 - Appointed Fr. Luciano Capelli S.D.B., director of the Don Bosco Technical School of Honiara, as bishop of Gizo (area 11,700, population 101,000, Catholics 10,673, priests 6, religious 23), Solomon Islands. The bishop-elect was born in Cologna di Tirano, Italy in 1947 and ordained a priest in 1975. He succeeds Bernard Cyril O'Grady O.P., whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese, the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.

 - Erected the ecclesiastical province of Johannesburg, South Africa, elevating the diocese of that name to the status of metropolitan Church and assigning it as suffragans the dioceses of Manzini (Swaziland), Klerksdorp and Witbank. At the same time, he appointed Archbishop-Bishop Buti Joseph Tlhagale O.M.I. of Johannesburg as metropolitan archbishop of the new archdiocese.

 - Transferred the diocese of Gaborone, South Africa, and the apostolic vicariate of Francistown, Botswana, from the province of Bloemfontein to the province of Pretoria. The province of Bloemfontein thus remains with the suffragan sees of Bethlehem, Keimoes-Upington, Kimberley and Kroonstad.

 - Appointed Fr. Anton Bal, vicar general of the diocese of Kundiawa, Papua New Guinea, as auxiliary of the same diocese (area 6,181, population 310,000, Catholics 104,943, priests 27, religious 40). The bishop-elect was born in Yuri, Papua New Guinea in 1963, and ordained a priest in 1991.
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IN MEMORIAM

VATICAN CITY, JUN 5, 2007 (VIS) - The following prelates died in recent weeks:

 - Bishop Augustine Cheong Myeng-cho of Pusan, Korea, on June 1, at the age of 72.

 - Bishop Michael Joseph Dudick, emeritus of Passaic of the Ruthenians, U.S.A., on May 30, at the age of 91.

 - Bishop Marcello Morgante, emeritus of Ascoli Piceno, Italy on May 20, at the age of 92.

 - Bishop Baptist Mudartha, emeritus of Allahabad, India, on May 30, at the age of 95.

 - Bishop Michel M. P. Saudreau, emeritus of Le Havre, France, on May 31, at the age of 79.

 - Bishop Michel Visi of Port-Vila, Vanuatu, on May 19, at the age of 52.

 - Archbishop Lambertus Johannes van Heygen C.S.Sp., emeritus of Bertoua, Cameroon, on May 30, at the age of 86.
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