OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

Vatican City,  (VIS) - The Holy Father:

- Appointed Bishop Prakash Mallavarapu of Vijayawada, India, as archbishop of Visakhapatnam (area 25,950, population 12,816,000, Catholics 250,186, priests 154, religious 581), India. He succeeds Archbishop Mariadas Kagithapu M.S.F.S., whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same archdiocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.

- Appointed Msgr. Jeffrey Marc Monforton of the clergy of the archdiocese of Detroit, U.S.A., pastor of the parish of St. Andrew in Rochester, as bishop of Steubenville (area 15,309, population 538,000, Catholics 38,900, priests 118, permanent deacons 6, religious 100), U.S.A. The bishop-elect was born in Detroit in 1963 and ordained a priest in 1994. He has served in pastoral care in numerous parishes, and has worked as professor and later rector of the Sacred Heart Seminary.

- Erected the new diocese of Batticaloa (area 7,269, population 1,199,966, Catholics 55,225, priests 48, religious 84) Sri Lanka, with territory taken from the diocese of Trincomalee-Batticaloa, making it a suffragan of the metropolitan church of Colombo. He appointed Bishop Joseph Ponniah, auxiliary of Trincomalee-Batticaloa, as first bishop of the new diocese.