VATICAN CITY (AP) - The Vatican on Saturday announced a
replacement for the archbishop of Cali, who was shot and killed five months ago
after presiding over a group wedding in Colombia's third-largest city.
Monsignor Juan Francisco Sarasti Jaramillo, formerly the archbishop of the
Colombian city of Ibague, will fill the post left vacant by the March 16
slaying of Archbishop Isaias Duarte Cancino, the Vatican said.
Sarasti Jaramillo, 64, is a native of Cali, but since 1993 has been based in
Ibague , a city 80 miles southwest of Bogota.
Colombian authorities suspect drug gangs were responsible for Duarte's slaying.
Shortly before he was killed, he had spoken of ties between cocaine traffickers
and candidates in recent congressional elections.
Colombia's civil war pits two leftist rebel groups against an illegal
right-wing paramilitary army and government troops. Roughly 3,500 people are killed
in the fighting every year.
Church leaders have participated in peace talks and clerics frequently pepper
their sermons with criticisms of the armed groups.