The news was announced on the day that Bishop Kriengsak Kovithavanij, the second cardinal in the history of Thailand, turned 75 years of canonical age. The bishop of Chang Mai, Bishop Vira Arpondratana, has been appointed apostolic administrator of the Church of the capital.
Vatican City () – Pope Francis accepted the resignation of card. Francis Xavier Kriengsak Kovithavanij, who headed the archdiocese of Bangkok. The announcement was made today by the Vatican Press Room, the same day that the cardinal turned 75, the age set by the Code of Canon Law for all bishops to present their resignation to the pontiff. Pope Francis has not yet designated a successor and the government of the Archdiocese of Bangkok has been temporarily entrusted to the Bishop of Chang Mai, Msgr. Francis Xavier Vira Arpondratana.
sources report from Bangkok that in the archdiocese there has been a distance between the prelate and an important part of the clergy for some time due to some decisions that were adopted in the government of the local Church. Therefore, his submission of resignation for having reached the age of 75 and his quick acceptance of it was not a surprise. The archdiocese of Bangkok was created as the apostolic vicariate of Siam in 1662 and today has just over 122,000 faithful, which corresponds to 0.9% of the local population, with a large Buddhist majority. The archdiocese is divided into 59 parishes in which nearly 240 priests exercise their ministry, including diocesans, religious and members of missionary institutes.
Francis Xavier Kriengsak Kovithavanij is the second cardinal in the history of the Thai Church, after his predecessor in the Bangkok chair, Michael Michai Kitbunchu, current 95-year-old archbishop emeritus, who led this Church between 1972 and 2009. Born on 27 June 1949 in Ban Rak, in the archdiocese of Bangkok, Kriengsak Kovithavanij was ordained a diocesan priest by Archbishop Kitbunchu in 1977. He served as rector of the Sampran national major seminary and parish priest of the cathedral, and in 2007 he was appointed bishop of Nakhon Sawan by Benedict XVI. Two years later he was transferred to Bangkok and took up Card’s legacy. Kitbunchu. Later, Pope Francis created him cardinal in the consistory of February 14, 2015.
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