VATICAN CITY, MAY 17, 2011 (Zenit.org).- A Uruguayan professor, husband and father of four has been given the highest Curial post to be held by a layman in modern history.
Benedict XVI named Guzmán Carriquiry as secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, which depends on the Congregation for Bishops.
Carriquiry has worked in the Vatican for four decades. He had been serving as the under-secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity. In that role, he succeeded the first woman to hold an executive role in the Curia: Rosemary Goldie, who died in March 2010, and served as undersecretary for the laity council for almost a decade following her 1967 appointment.
Steubenville
Benedict XVI also appointed Bishop Robert Conlon of Steubenville as bishop of Joliet in Illinois.
Robert Conlon was born in 1948 and ordained in 1977. He was named the bishop of Steubenville in 2002.
The Diocese of Joliet has some 655,000 Catholics, served by nearly 300 priests, more than 200 permanent deacons and some 670 religious.
