Pope appoints new Karachi archbishop

Accepting the resignation of Cardinal Joseph Coutts of Karachi who stepped down on reaching the canonical retirement age of 75 in July 2020, Pope Francis has appointed a new archbishop in the Archdiocese of Karachi, Pakistan.

The pope appointed Bishop Benny Mario Travas of Multan as the archbishop on Thursday, According to the Vatican News. Bishop Travas was born on November 21, 1966, and became a priest on December 7, 1990. He was appointed as the apostolic administrator of Multan in 2014 where he was nominated its bishop on May 29, 2015, and was consecrated as the bishop on August 15, 2015.

Cardinal Coutts was born on July 21 1945 in Amritsar in British India. After his priestly studies and training at the Christ the King Seminary in Karachi, he was ordained a priest in Lahore on January 9, 1971.

After pursuing higher ecclesiastical studies in Rome, he returned home and served as a professor of philosophy at the Christ the King Regional Seminary, Karachi, rector of St. Mary's Minor Seminary, Lahore, and later the diocesan vicar general.

On May 5, 1988, Saint Pope John Paul II appointed him as the coadjutor bishop of Hyderabad in Pakistan. On 27 June 1998, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him as the bishop of Faisalabad where he served until January 25, 2012, when he was transferred to Karachi as the archbishop.