HONG KONG (SE): Monsignor Ante Jozic, the former head of the Holy See Study Mission in Hong Kong, will be ordained an archbishop on September 16. Pietro Cardinal Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, will officiate the episcopal ordination in his native diocese of Split in Croatia on Wednesday at 10:00am, Croatian time. (4:00pm HK time)
Monsignor Jozic, who worked for 10 years in Hong Kong, was instrumental in realising the provisional agreement between Vatican and China on the appointment of bishops in September 2018. He left Hong Kong after being appointed apostolic nuncio to the Ivory Coast in February 2019 and archbishop of the titular diocese of Cissa.
The episcopal ordination was rescheduled twice earlier. It was orginally scheduled for 1 May 2019, but was postponed after Monsignor Jozic was seriously injured after his car collided with another vehicle inside a tunnel on 7 April 7 2019, in his home town of Split, Croatia. Following his recovery, the ordination was rescheduled for March 21 in Rome, ut due to the Covid-19 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) outbreak in Italy, it had to be postponed a second time.
Monsignor Jozic joined the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in 1995 and worked for the Holy See in Russia and the Philippines before coming to Hong Kong.
