PRAYING WITH MOZART ON THE THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF THE TSUNAMI IN JAPAN

Vatican City, 11 March 2014 (VIS) – The concert “Mozart's Requiem for Japan from the Vatican” will be held today in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside-the-Walls to commemorate the third anniversary of the earthquake that occurred in Japan on 11 March 2011. This initiative, organised with the patronage of the Japanese embassy to the Holy See, is intended to raise prayers for the victims of the tsunami and the earthquake that afflicted Japan in 2011.

The Gioacchino Rossini Symphony Orchestra of Pesaro and the San Carlo choir from the same city, conducted by the maestro Daniele Agiman, will perform Mozart's Requiem at 8 p.m. Entry to the concert is free and open to all those who wish to participate in this act of remembrance for this tragic event which cost the lives of over fifteen thousand people, caused fifty thousand casualties and left four thousand missing.

OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

Vatican City, 11 March 2014 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed Fr. Placide Lubamba Ndjibu, M. Afr., as bishop of Kasongo (area 75,300, population 1,700,000, Catholics 570,000, priests 59, religious 21), Democratic Republic of Congo. The bishop-elect was born in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo in 1959, and was ordained a priest in 1991. He completed his studies in theology at the Catholic Institute of Tolosa, France, and studied journalism and social communications at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He has served in a number of pastoral roles, including priest of the “Sacred Heart” parish in Manzeze, Tanzania, editor of the KARIBU bulletin in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo, and chaplain of the Wima High School and the Saio military camp, Bukavu, and priest of the “St. Bernadette” parish in Lubumbashi. Since 2010 he is the provincial of the White Fathers for Central Africa (Burundi, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo).