OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

Vatican City,  (VIS) - The Holy Father:

- Appointed Bishop Luigi Negri, bishop of San Marino-Montefeltro, as archbishop of Ferrara-Comacchio, (area 3,138, population 276,000, Catholics 272,000, priests 173, permanent deacons 12, religious 282), Italy. He succeeds Archbishop Paolo Rabitti, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same archdiocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.

- Accepted the resignation from the archdiocese of Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, presented by Archbishop John Lee Hiong Fun-Yit Yaw upon having reached the age limit. He is succeeded by Coadjutor Archbishop John Wong Soo Kau.

- Appointed Fr. Jean-Paul Vesco, O.P., provincial superior of the Dominicans in France, as bishop of Oran (area 77,353, population 8,304,000, Catholics 800, priests 10, religious 47), Algeria. He succeeds Bishop Alphonse Georger, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit. The bishop-elect was born in Lyon, France in 1962 and ordained a priest in 1996. He was appointed vicar general of the diocese of Oran in 2005. He was elected superior of the Community of Dominicans in Tlemcen in 2007, and provincial superior in France in 2011.

- Appointed Msgr. Antoni Stankiewicz as member of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.

- Appointed Bishop Charles J. Scicluna of Malta as member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.