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Africa: Pope Appoints New Bishops
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Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
21 December 2007
Posted to the web 21 December 2007
Vatican
The Pope on Tuesday accepted the retirement Bishop Joseph Niangoran Teki of the Diocese of Man and appointed Fr Gaspard Béby Gnéba his successor.
Forty-four-year-old Fr Gnéba was until his appointment professor of spiritual theology and liturgy at Notre Dame Major Seminary in Gagnoa.
Bishop-elect Gnéba was born January 6, 1963, at Tehiri Guitry in the Archdiocese of Gagnoa. After primary school he entered Gagnoa Minor Seminary and then studied philosophy at Yopougon and theology at Abidjan Major Seminary. He was ordained a priest on July 12, 1992.
Fr. Gnéba served as assistant priest at St Anne's Cathedral Gagnoa and director of the Catechetical Centre. Later he studied for a doctorate in spiritual theology at the Teresianum College in Rome. Since 2004 he has taught spiritual theology and liturgy at Notre Dame.
The Diocese of Man, suffragan of the Archdiocese of Gagnoa, was created in 1968. It has a population of about 1.5 million people, 76,200 of whom are Catholics in 25 parishes. The diocese has 29 diocesan priests and four religious priests, 47 women religious and 20 major seminarians.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, the Holy Father named as bishop of Aliwal Fr. Michael Wüstenberg of the clergy of Hildesheim, Germany. The new bishop, a fidei donum missionary, is a former vicar general of the Diocese of Aliwal.
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Rev. Michael Wüstenberg was born on July 19, 1954 in Dortmund, in the archdiocese of Paderborn Germany. After primary and secondary school in Hamburg, he studied philosophy and theology at St. Georgen Seminary, in Frankfurt am Main, run by Jesuits, and at the University of Freiburg. He was ordained a priest on June 5, 1982, for the Diocese of Hildesheim.
Rev. Wüstenberg went as a fidei donum priest to the Diocese of Aliwal, where he was parish priest at Sterkspruit while studying missiology at the University of South, obtaining a doctorate. He was vicar general of the diocese and a Staff member LUMKO, the national institute for pastoral care. Since 2006, he has been professor of pastoral theology and homiletics at St. John Vianney Major Seminary, Pretoria.
At the same time the Pope has appointed Fr. Eugene Cyrille Houndekon, secretary general of the Episcopal Conference of Benin, as bishop of Abomey. Fr Houndekon is a priest of Contonou. Abomey has about 625,000 people, some 100,000 of them Catholics, served by 73 priests and 135 religious. The bishop-elect was born in Contonou in 1960 and ordained a priest in 1986. [Reports by FIDES/VIS]
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