Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines Archbishop Charles John Brown will formally install Bishop-elect Pablito Tagura as the new bishop of the Apostolic Vicariate of San Jose, Occidental Mindoro during rites to be held on Feb. 25.
The Apostolic Vicariate has been without a bishop since March 2018 after the resignation of Bishop Antonio Palang, who died three years later.
Before his canonical installation, Tagura will first be consecrated bishop on Feb. 17 by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, pro-prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelization, said a Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines News post. Apostolic vicariates and prelatures are part of the mission territories of Cardinal Tagle’s dicastery.
Church leaders including bishops, priests, consecrated persons, and laypeople are expected to attend his episcopal ordination on Feb. 17 at the Christ the King Mission Seminary (CKMS) in Quezon City, where the priest of the Society of Divine Word and rector of the Formation House of the CKMS teaches.
Pope Francis appointed Tagura last December as the third bishop of the vicariate which has a population of around half a million, about 75 percent of which are Roman Catholics.
“It was unexpected but I’m blessed. It’s a grace from God that I’m given the chance to serve the vicariate,” the bishop-elect said.
“It would be a different ministry for me because, for more than 28 years, I have been teaching in the seminary,” he added.
Born in Lagangilang, Abra in 1962, the bishop-elect took his Philosophy and Theology studies at the Divine Word Seminary in Tagaytay City. The 60-year-old was ordained a priest on Dec. 17, 1988, in Bangued, Abra. In 1997, Tagura obtained his Doctorate in Philosophy at the Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the United States.