CARDINAL SODANO TO INAUGURATE CENTER FOR THE POOR

VATICAN CITY, FEB 3, 2000 (VIS) - This evening in Via Pfeiffer near St. Peter's Square, Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano will inaugurate a new center, where every day from 12 to 2 p.m. free meals - supplied by St. Peter's Circle - will be distributed to the poor. The initiative is part of a project called "the Pope's charity for the Jubilee."

The ceremony will take place at 5 p.m. in the St. Lawrence International Youth Center at 10 Via Pfeiffer. Following the inauguration of this center, others will be opened near the basilicas of St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls, St. Mary Major and St. John Lateran, each of which will distribute 100 meals a day.

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OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, FEB 3, 2000 (VIS) - The Holy Father:

- Appointed Bishop Edmond Carmody of Tyler, U.S.A., as bishop of Corpus Christi (area 44,774, population 808,146, Catholics 366,500, priests 154, permanent deacons 66, religious 405), U.S.A.

- Erected the diocese of Kolda (area 16,011, population 1,185,340, Catholics 81,333, priests 20, religious 19), Senegal, with territory taken from the diocese of Ziguinchor, making it a suffragan of the metropolitan church of Dakar. He appointed Fr. Jean-Pierre Bassene of the clergy of Ziguinchor, secretary of the Regional Episcopal Conference of West Africa (CERAO), as first bishop of the new diocese. The bishop-elect was born at Esyl, Senegal, in 1951 and ordained a priest in 1980.

- Appointed Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano as pontifical legate at celebrations for the fifth centenary of the evangelization of Brazil. The event will take place at Porto Seguro, Brazil, on April 26.

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