AFRICA/ZIMBABWE - The Pope appoints Bishop of Chinhoyi

Vatican City (Fides Service) - The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI on 6 April 2006, appointed Bishop of Chinhoyi (Zimbabwe) Rev. Fr. Dieter Scholz, SJ, Director of Harare Formation Centre .
Bishop elect Dieter Scholz, SJ, was born on 2 June 1938 in Berlin (Germany). He entered the Society of Jesus on 15 April 1958 and completed his novitiate in a Bingen (Germany). He studied philosophy at Lyons (France) and theology in Frankfurt (Germany). Sent to Zimbabwe, (then Rhodesia), he obtained an MA in Anthropology and African Languages in 1966 at the University of Rhodesia and Nyassaland in Salisbury (today Zimbabwe University, Harare). He was ordained a priest in 13 July 1969 in Berlin. He made his perpetual vows on 2 February 1982.
He has ministered as follows: (1972-1978) worked with Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace CCJ&P to investigate, document and publish atrocities committed by security forces in Rhodesia against the black population. In 1978 he was detained briefly in prison, tried in court and expelled from Rhodesia; (1981-1990) appointed by the Jesuit prepositor general first director of the newly established Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) in Rome at the Jesuit General House; (1991-1996) he returned to Zimbabwe and was parish priest/superior of Marymount Mission in the diocese of Chinhoyi; (1997-2005) director of Silveira House centre for formation in Leadership & Development.
Chinhoyi diocese was created in 1985, a suffragan of the archdiocese of Harare. It has an area of 56,000 sq. km, a population of 1,679,101 of whom 84,290 are Catholics gathered in 10 parishes, looked after by 28 priests (20 diocesan and 8 religious), 7 Brothers, 87 Sisters and there are 24 major seminarians. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 7/4/2006; Righe 23; Parole 304)