The Latin American bishops' council, meeting in Havana, elected new officers, among whose jobs will be overseeing the implementation of the guidelines in the final document of the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Archbishop Raymundo Damasceno Assis of Aparecida, Brazil, where the general conference met in May, was elected president of the bishops' council, known by its Spanish acronym as CELAM. Archbishop Assis will lead the council, which represents 22 bishops' conferences from Latin America and the Caribbean, until 2011.

 Archbishop Baltazar Porras Cardoza of Merida, Venezuela, was elected first vice president, and Bishop Andres Stanovnik of Reconquista, Argentina, was elected second vice president. Some 70 delegates, including five cardinals, were representing their bishops' conferences at the July 10-13 meeting at San Juan Maria Vianney house in Havana. (CNS)