Asia

Photo : Archdiocese of Manila webite - rcam.org

March 26, 2021 (Vatican News) : Pope Francis on Thursday appointed a new archbishop in Manila Archdiocese, in the Philippine capital. He transferred Cardinal Jose Fuerte Advincula of Capiz to succeed Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, who the Pope had appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in the Vatican on December 8, 2019. The See of Manila has been vacant for more than 15 months during which Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo has been serving as Apostolic Administrator.

Cardinal Jose Fuerte Advincula was born on March 30, 1952 in Dumalag, in Capiz, in the Western Visayas region. He was ordained as a priest on April 14, 1979.

Saint Pope John Paul II appointed him Bishop of San Carlos on July 25, 2001. After 10 years, Pope Benedict XVI transferred him to his native Archdiocese of Capiz as archbishop on November 9, 2011.

Pope Francis created him cardinal at the consistory of November 28, 2020.

With 3 million Catholics in more than 80 parishes, Manila is the largest archdiocese of the Philippines. The metropolitan ecclesiastical province of Manila includes 9 suffragan dioceses. On February 6, Manila Archdiocese marked 442 years as a diocese. It was erected on February 6, 1579, as a suffragan diocese of the ecclesiastical province of Mexico, encompassing Spain's colonies in Asia.

The appointment makes Advincula the most prominent Church leader in the Philippines, which has the world’s third-largest Catholic population after Brazil and Mexico. Around 85% of the country’s estimated 110 million people are baptized Catholics.

Source : Vatican News