By Bezawit Assefa
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| Fr. Petros Berga |
Fr Petros Berga who once served at Ethiopian Catholic Church’s Secretariat as Secretary General and later Pastoral Coordinator has been nominated by His Holiness Pope Francis as Apostolic Visitator for Ethiopian Catholics in Diaspora in Europe.
By this appointment, Rev. Fr Petros Barga takes up the responsibility of representing the Holy See on matters pertaining to the Ethiopian faithful of the Alexandrian Ge’ez rite and he will be resident in Europe.
According to the announcement published by the Holy See on January 7, Fr. Petros S. Berga was born on 24 December 1967 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; he is a member of the clergy of the Diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam, Netherlands; and he is currently serving in Addis Ababa.
“After completing his studies in philosophy and theology at the Catholic University of Utrecht, Netherlands, he was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Haarlem-Amsterdam in 1998. Appointed parish priest of Saint Nicholas in Edam, he dedicated himself at the same time to the pastoral care of the Ethiopian Catholic faithful in Western Europe, bringing them together in communities. In 2010 he completed doctoral study on Dialogue at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome,” reads part of the announcement which was also published by the independent news agency, Zenith.
Going by Church history, the use of Apostolic visitators has been there in the Catholic Church since the papacy of Pope Urban VIII in the 17th century. The office falls under the Roman Curia with a mandate to pay special attention and fulfil specific ecclesiastical obligations.
