A new archbishop for the Celtic fringe

On the sixth anniversary of his election to the papacy, Pope Benedict XVI appointed a new archbishop of Cardiff. It is Bishop George Stack, until today one of the three auxiliary bishops of Westminster. The metropolitan see of Wales had been vacant since Archbishop Peter Smith was appointed to Southwark almost a year ago.

Archbishop-elect Stack was born in Ireland in 1946. In 1972 he was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Westminster, the same archdiocese of which he became an auxiliary bishop in 2001. He now becomes the ninth ordinary of Cardiff, which is an archdiocese since 1916.

Cardiff is one of three Catholic dioceses in Wales – the others are Wrexham and Menevia – but in numbers it is fairly small. Only about 6% of the population, some 82,000, is Catholic. Nonetheless, it is the first diocese of Wales. Both Menevia and Wrexham were created out of the archdiocese, which once covered all of Wales and adjoining counties in England, although it was then known as the Vicariate Apostolic of Wales.

Via the website of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Archbishop-elect Stack writes:

“I am humbled and honoured at the trust Pope Benedict XVI has placed in appointing me Archbishop of Cardiff.

“Although I am sad to be leaving the Archdiocese of Westminster, in which I have served as priest for 29 years and auxiliary bishop for 10 years, I look forward to serving the people and clergy of the Church in Cardiff with love and faithfulness in the years that lie ahead.

“I am aware of the long and noble history of Christianity in Wales and the special gifts the Celtic people bring to the Universal Church. I hope to share in this rich tradition of faith.”

A date for the installation for the new archbishop will be published soon.

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38 pallia on 29 June

The papal pallium, in the design introduced in 2008

On 28 June, the feast day of Saints Peter and Paul, 38 metropolitan archbishops will receive the pallium from Pope Benedict XVI. The 38 are archbishops which have been appointed in the past year, and the pallium is the symbol of their jurisdiction as bestowed upon them by the pope. It is therefore also a sign of the bond between the archbishops and Rome, and thus between the Church on the local level and the worldwide level.

A pallium bestowed signifies the pastoral power of an archbishop in an archdiocese and Church province, and is tied to that jurisdiction. If an archbishop is installed in another archdiocese (as happened in the past year to Archbishop Peter Smith, who moved from Cardiff to Southwark), he will receive a new pallium.

A metropolitan archbishop has supervisory rights in the so-called suffragan dioceses outside his own archdiocese. For example, in the Netherlands, Utrecht is the archdiocese and the other dioceses are are suffragans. Archbishop Wim Eijk of Utrecht can, for example, intervene in legal matters in the other Dutch dioceses

The Vatican Information Service has the complete list new metropolitans:

– Archbishop Luis Gerardo Herrera O.F.M. of Cuenca, Ecuador
– Archbishop Alex Thomas Kaliyanil S.V.D. of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
– Archbishop Gerard Tlali Lerotholi O.M.I. of Maseru, Lesotho
– Archbishop Antonio Fernando Saburido O.S.B. of Olinda and Recife, Brazil
– Archbishop Albert Legatt of Saint-Boniface, Canada
– Archbishop Gualtiero Bassetti of Perugia – Citta della Pieve, Italy
– Archbishop Andrea Bruno Mazzocato of Udine, Italy

Archbishop Mazzocato

– Archbishop Gabriel Mblinghi C.S.Sp. of Lubango, Angola
– Archbishop Socrates B. Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, Philippines
– Archbishop Constancio Miranda Weckmann of Chihuahua, Mexico
– Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham, England
– Archbishop Juan Jose Asenjo Pelegrina of Seville, Spain.
– Archbishop Jerome Edward Lisecki of Milwaukee, U.S.A
– Archbishop Samuel Kleda of Douala, Cameroon

Archbishop Kleda

– Archbishop Jesus Sanz Montes O.F.M. of Oviedo, Spain
– Archbishop Anton Stres C.M. of Ljubljana, Slovenia
– Archbishop Joseph Atanga S.J. of Bertoua, Cameroon
– Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town, South Africa
– Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr of Cincinnati, U.S.A
– Archbishop Alberto Taveira Correa of Belem do Para, Brazil
– Archbishop Andre-Mutien [sic] Leonard of Mechelen-Brussels, Belgium

Archbishop Léonard

– Archbishop Antonio Lanfranchi of Modena – Nonantola, Italy
– Archbishop Dominik Duka O.P. of Prague, Czech Republic
– Archbishop Ricardo Antonio Tobon Restrepo of Medellin, Colombia
– Archbishop Jose Domingo Ulloa Mendieta O.S.A. of Panama, Panama
– Archbishop Francis Kallarakal of Verapoly, India
– Archbishop Desire Tsarahazana of Toamasina, Madagascar
– Archbishop Ricardo Blazquez Perez of Valladolid, Spain

Archbishop Ricardo Blazquez Perez

– Archbishop Hyginus Kim Hee-joong of Kwangju, Korea
– Archbishop Luis Madrid Merlano of Nueva Pamplona, Colombia
– Archbishop Thomas Gerard Wenski of Miami, U.S.A
– Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark, England
– Archbishop Jozef Kowalczyk of Gniezno, Poland
– Archbishop Pierre Nguyen Van Nhon of Hanoi, Vietnam

Archbishop Nguyen Van Nhon

– Archbishop Matthias Kobena Nketsiah of Cape Coast, Ghana
– Archbishop Bernard Bober of Kosice, Slovakia
– Archbishop Carlos Garfias Merlos of Acapulco, Mexico
– Archbishop Luigi Moretti of Salerno – Campagna – Acerno, Italy