Vatican City (Fides Service) - The Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, on 22 January 2005, has appointed secretary adjunct of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples and President of the Pontifical Mission Societies Reverend Henryk Hoser, S.A.C., raising him to the dignity of Archbishop and assigning to him the titular see of Tepelte.
The Archbishop elect was born in Warsaw, Poland 27 November 1942. After school in Pruszków and Warsaw he went to the Warsaw University of Medicine where he obtained his degree in 1966 and was appointed assistant to the Warsaw University of Medicine academy. In 1969 he entered the Society for the Catholic Apostolate (Pallottine Fathers) and made his profession on September 8, 1970. From 1970-1974 he studied philosophy and theology at the SAC major seminary in Oltawerz, Poland.
On 16 June 1974 he was ordained a priest. 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 as: assistant parish priest, parish priest, family apostolate animator, head of apostolic formation for the laity, promoter of the apostolate of the press.
In 1978 in Kigali, he opened a Medical-Social Centre of which he was director for 17 years and a Centre for Family Action. He was also secretary of the Bishops’ Commission for Health Pastoral and then of the Bishops’ Commission for the Family, president of the Association of Medical Centres in Kigali (BUFMAR), head of programmes to monitor AIDS and provide psycho-medical and social assistance to HIV/AIDS patients.
In Rwanda he was SAC Regional Superior and also president of the Conference of Major Superiors of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life in Rwanda (COSUMA) for 10 years. In 1994 he attended the Special Synod for Africa as expert in the field of the family and development. In 1994, in the absence of the Papal Nuncio in Rwanda, the Holy See appointed him Apostolic Visitor to that country for two years pending the appointment of a new Nuncio. From 1996 to 2003 he was SAC Regional Superior and member of the Missionary Council of the Conference of Major Superiors in France. During this period he was sent by the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples to visit major seminaries in mission territories. 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. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 22/1/2005; Righe 35; Parole 456)