OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

Vatican City,  (VIS) - The Holy Father:

- Appointed Fr. Peter Loy Chong of the clergy of Suva as archbishop of Suva (area 18,333, population 1,297,683, Catholics 101,050, priests 81, religious 162), Fiji. The archbishop-elect was born in Natovi, Fiji in 1961 and ordained a priest in 1992. He has fulfilled  pastoral roles in the parishes of Lautoka, Vatukoula and Soleva, and received his doctorate in theology from the Jesuit School of Theology of the Santa Clara University in California, United States of America. He succeeds Archbishop Petero Mataca, 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 pastoral care of the Chaldean Church presented by His Beatitude Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans, Iraq, and convoked the Synod of Bishops of the same Church in Rome on 28 January 2013 to elect a successor. The Synod will be presided by Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches. The Holy Father appointed Archbishop Jacques Ishaq as administrator of the Chaldean Church pending the election of the patriarch.