World News
Portuguese archbishop named Vatican's major penitentiary
Published: January 5, 2012
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has named the 73-year-old secretary of the Congregation for Bishops to be the new head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, a church court dealing with indulgences, serious sins and matters of conscience. Portuguese Archbishop Manuel Monteiro de Castro, who served as a Vatican diplomat for more than four decades before being named to the bishops' congregation in 2009, will be the new major penitentiary. The Vatican announced the appointment Jan. 5. The apostolic penitentiary also coordinates the work of the confessors in the major basilicas of Rome. Archbishop Monteiro de Castro was born March 29, 1938, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1961 for the Archdiocese of Braga, Portugal. He earned a degree in canon law and entered the Vatican diplomatic corps in 1967, serving over the years at nunciatures in Panama, Guatemala, Vietnam, Australia, Mexico and Belgium. In 1985, Pope John Paul II named him an archbishop and nuncio to eight Caribbean countries, including Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas.
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