OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS

VATICAN CITY, 25 MAR 2011 (VIS) - The Holy Father:

 - Appointed Bishop Valter Dario Maggi, auxiliary of Guayaquil, Ecuador, as bishop of Ibarra (area 4,986, population 347,000, Catholics 332,800, priests 101, permanent deacons 1, religious 263), Ecuador. He succeeds Bishop Julio Cesar Teran Datari, S.J., whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.

 - Appointed Bishop Vincenzo Bertolone, S.d.P. of Cassano allo Jonio, Italy, as metropolitan archbishop of Catanzaro-Squillace (area 1,806, population 248,000, Catholics 244,300, priests 182, permanent deacons 17, religious 212), Italy. The archbishop-elect was born in San Biagio Platani, Italy in 1946, he was ordained a priest in 1975 and consecrated a bishop in 2007. He succeeds Archbishop Antonio Ciliberti, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.

 - Appointed Fr. Paul Sueo Hamaguchi, pastor of the cathedral church of Takamatsu, Japan, as bishop of Oita (area 14,071, population 2,376,414, Catholics 6,288, priests 50, religious 228), Japan. The bishop-elect was born in Higashi Shutsu, Japan in 1948 and ordained a priest in 1975.

 - Appointed John Eijro Suwa of the clergy of Osaka, Japan, moderator and pastor of the pastoral zone of Kochi Takamatsu, as bishop of Takamatsu (area 18,903, population 4,031,481, Catholics 5,100, priests 46, religious 84), Japan. The bishop-elect was born in Kobe, Japan in 1947 and ordained a priest in 1976. He succeeds Bishop Francis Xavier Osamu Mizobe, S.D.B., whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.

 - Granted the confirmation requested of him in accordance with canon 153 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches by Archbishop Sviatoslav Schevchuk, canonically elected as major archbishop of Kyiv-Halyc, Ukraine, by the Synod of Bishops of the Greek-Catholic Ukrainian Church meeting in Lviv, Ukraine, on 23 March.
NER:RE/                                VIS 20110325 (330)