VATICAN CITY, JAN. 23, 2005 (Zenit.org).- John Paul II appointed Father Henryk Hoser as secretary adjunct of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and president of the Pontifical Mission Societies.
Father Hoser, 62, will be elevated to the dignity of archbishop, the Vatican press office announced Saturday.
The archbishop-elect was born in Warsaw, Poland. He studied medicine at Warsaw University, where he obtained his degree in 1966 and was appointed assistant to the Academy of Medicine of Warsaw University, according to the Fides news agency.
In 1969 Henryk Hoser joined the Pallottine Fathers, the Society for the Catholic Apostolate (SAC), and made his profession in September 1970.
He was ordained a priest in June 1974. From 1974-75 he studied French and tropical medicine in Paris in preparation for missionary work in Rwanda where he served from 1975 to 1995.
In 1978 in Kigali, he opened a medical-social center of which he was director for 17 years and a Center for Family Action.
In Rwanda, Father Hoser was SAC regional superior and president of the Conference of Major Superiors of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life in Rwanda for 10 years.
In 1994, the Holy See appointed him apostolic visitor to Rwanda for two years pending the appointment of a new papal nuncio.
From 1996 to 2003 he was SAC regional superior and member of the Missionary Council of the Conference of Major Superiors in France.
He was co-founder and secretary of the African Federation of Family Action instituted in 2001.
Since 2004 he has been rector of the Pallottine mission Procura in Brussels, Belgium, where he was also involved in pastoral work in the ambit of the European Union.
