OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

Vatican City, 3 January 2014 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father appointed Rev. Felicien Mwanama Galumbulula as bishop of Luiza (area 33,524, population 3,000,000, Catholics 1,570,000, priests 157, religious 430), Democratic Republic of Congo. The bishop-elect was born in Tshibala, Democratic Republic of Congo in 1960 and was ordained a priest in 1987. He holds a doctorate in missiology from the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, and a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Lateran University, Rome. He has served in the following pastoral and academic roles: spiritual director and teacher at the St. Leon minor seminary in Luiza and in the Jean Paul II major seminary in Tschilomba; visiting professor at the Catholic University of the Congo; professor and subsequently rector of the major seminary of Malole-Kananga; professor at the African Institute of Missionary Science, Kinshasa; and secretary of the Episcopal Commission for legal affairs of the Episcopal Conference of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since 2008 he has served as secretary general of the Episcopal Conference. He succeeds Bishop Leonard Kasanda Lumembo, C.I.C.M., whose resignation from the pastoral governance of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.