OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, 19 JAN 2009 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed:

 - Msgr. Edward J. Burns of the clergy of Pittsburgh, U.S.A., rector of the St. Paul diocesan seminary, as bishop of Juneau (area 97,258, population 74,000, Catholics 7,350, priests 10, permanent deacons 5, religious 8), U.S.A. The bishop-elect was born in Pittsburgh in 1957 and ordained a priest in 1983.

 - Bishop Dionisio Lachovicz O.S.B.M. as apostolic visitor for Ukrainians of Byzantine rite resident in Italy and Spain.

  On Saturday 17 January it was made public that he:

 - Accepted the resignation from the office of auxiliary of the archdiocese of Caracas, Venezuela, presented by Bishop Pedro Nicolas Bermudez Villamizar C.I.M., in accordance with canon 401 para. 1 and canon 411 of the Code of Canon Law.

 - Erected the new diocese of Rutana (area 2,180, population 378,387, Catholics 168,160, priests 23, religious 30) Burundi, with territory taken from the dioceses of Bururi and Ruyigi, making it a suffragan of the metropolitan church of Gitega. He appointed Fr. Bonaventure Nahimana, rector of the major inter-diocesan seminary of Burasira, and secretary of the episcopal commission for vocations and seminaries as first bishop of the new diocese. The bishop-elect was born in Gisebuzi, Burundi in 1959 and ordained a priest in 1986.

 - Appointed Fr. Franco Mulakkal of the clergy of Jullundur, India, treasurer of the Apostolic Union of the Clergy and consultor of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, as auxiliary of the archdiocese of Delhi (area 15,420, population 19,023,000, Catholics 107,500, priests 247, religious 1,118), India. The bishop-elect was born in Mattam, India in 1964 and ordained a priest in 1990.

 - Appointed as members of the Pontifical Council for Culture: Cardinal Jorge Liberato Urosa Savino, archbishop of Caracas, Venezuela; Cardinal Telesphore Placidus Toppo, archbishop of Ranchi, India; Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, archbishop of Bordeaux, France; Cardinal Peter Erdo, archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, Hungary; Cardinal Angelo Scola, patriarch of Venice, Italy; Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston, U.S.A.; Cardinal Theodore-Adrien Sarr, archbishop of Dakar, Senegal; Archbishop Charles Maung Bo S.D.B. of Yangon, Myanmar; Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Muller of Regensburg, Germany; Archbishop Willem Jacobus Eijk of Utrecht, Netherlands, and Archbishop Hector Ruben Aguer of La Plata, Argentina.

 - Appointed as consultors of the Pontifical Council for Culture: Fr. Sebastian Maria Michael S.V.D., director of the Andheri Institute of Indian Culture in Mumbai, India; Dominique Jean-Marie Lambert, professor at the University of Notre Dame de la Paix in Namur, Belgium; Jean-Dominique Durand, philosopher-economist and professor of history at the State University and president of the "Fourviere" Foundation of Lyon, France; Roberto Jose Mendez Martinez, founder and co-ordinator of the "Aula de Poesia" of the "Dulce Maria Loynaz" Cultural Centre in Havana, Cuba; Rita Maria Isabell Naumann of the Marian Sisters of Schonstatt, professor at the Catholic Institute and dean of studies at the Good Shepherd Seminary in Sydney, Australia; Giovanna Parravicini, cultural counsellor of the pontifical representation to the Russian Federation, and Maria Lousie Kanse Tah in Mvbida, lawyer and founder member of the Justice and Peace commission of the archdiocese of Douala, Cameroon.
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