Vatican City, 13 December, 2019 / 9:17 am (ACI Africa).
On Thursday, December 12, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of two African Prelates and made three Episcopal appointments for the Church in Africa that included the transfer of the Local Ordinary of South Sudan’s Torit diocese, Bishop Stephen Ameyu to Juba Archdiocese and the naming of Fr. Daniel Nzika and Fr. Julius Yakubu Kundi as new Bishops in the Congo and Nigeria respectively.
“In follow-up to the telephone conversation, His Eminence Cardinal Filoni, the outgoing Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, has asked me to inform you that the Holy Father, Pope Francis, has accepted your request for the end of the pastoral governance of the Archdiocese of Juba,” begins the letter addressed to 79-year-old South Sudanese Archbishop Paolino Lukudu Loro issued by the Charge d’Affaires of the Apostolic Nunciature in South Sudan, Mons. Mark Kadima.
Kenyan-born Mons. Kadima announced the Papal transfer of Bishop Ameyu, set to mark his 56th birthday in January, to South Sudan’s capital, Juba, as Metropolitan Archbishop.
Addressing himself to Archbishop-elect and the outgoing Archbishop Lukudu, a Comboni Missionary, Mons. Kadima wrote in the December 12 letter, “Both of you will choose the day when the new Archbishop will take possession and governance of the Archdiocese, a date not more than two months from today.”
Incardinated in Torit diocese at his diaconate ordination in October 1990, Juba’s Archbishop-elect is an alumnus of the Pontifical Urbaniana University where he obtained his masters and doctoral degrees in Dogmatic Theology.’
