Vatican names Mons. Urosa new Archbishop of Caracas

Vatican City, Sep 19, 2005 / 22:00 pm

The Holy See Press Room informed that Pope Benedict  named Mons. Jorge Liberato Urosa Savino as the new Archbishop of Caracas (Venezuela), who up until now served as the Archbishop of Valencia.

The Prelate was born in Caracas in 1942. He studied at the inter-diocesan seminary of Caracas and at Saint Augustin seminary in Toronto, Canada. Subsequently, he was awarded a Doctorate in Dogmatic theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

He was ordained in Caracas on August 15^th, 1967. He served as professor and rector of the inter-diocesan seminary Santa Rosa de Lima in Caracas.

On July 6^th 1982, he was named Bishop of Vegelsa de Bizacena, and auxiliary Bishop of Caracas. He received the Episcopal order on September 22^nd, 1982, and on March 16^th, 1990 he was named bishop of Valencia in Venezuela.

Mons. Urosa succeeded to Cardinal Antonio Ignacio Velasco as pastoral director of the Archdiocese of Caracas, who died in 2003.

The Archdiocese of Caracas has a population of four million, of which three million, 400 thousand profess the catholic faith. There are currently 610 priests serving the diocese, along with more than 2000 religious and eleven permanent deacons.

In a declaration to the local press, the recently designated Archbishop of Caracas expressed his “great joy” receiving his nomination in a “sense of obedience to the will of God.”

The Prelate expressed that it is of his mission “to be the pastor of the faithful of the Archdiocese of Caracas, to announce  the message of Jesus Christ and bring love of Jesus Christ especially to those living in difficult situations, the poor, weak, banished, ill, those who have gone astray from God.”