Potential Pope Successor Moved to Key Position
Pope John Paul II shuffled the Vatican’s administration, giving a key post to a Nigerian cardinal often mentioned as a possible papal successor. Cardinal Francis Arinze, who headed the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, was named prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, which reviews liturgical texts.
Arinze, 69, succeeds Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina Estevez, a 75-year-old Chilean.
As Arinze’s successor in Interreligious Dialogue, the pope named Msgr. Michael Fitzgerald, an Englishman long involved in Vatican projects in the Muslim world.
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