Rev. Fr. Gregory Ramon Gaston, head of the Pontificio Collegio Filippino has been reelected as a council member of the association of rectors of seminaries, colleges, and other ecclesiastical institutes in Rome, Italy.
Eight out of the 10-member council of the Associazione dei Rettori dei Collegi Ecclesiastici di Roma (ARCER) were reelected, including Fr. Gaston, the CBCP said.
Fr. Gaston has been serving as the rector of the PCF, the official residence of Filipino priests doing further studies in Rome, since 2010.
The association’s current president, Benedictine Fr. Mauritius Wilde of St. Anselm College, was also reelected for a second two-year term.
The other colleges elected to the Council were the Urbanian Seminary (for seminarians from mission territories), Brazilian, Sedes Sapientiae Seminary (run by Opus Dei for diocesan seminarians), French, English, Polish, Croatian, Belgian, and St. Paul (for priests from mission territories).
The election took place during the ARCER general assembly at the College of Legionaries of Christ in Rome on Nov. 23.
ARCER represents 131 ecclesiastical colleges that serve as homes to seminarians or priests studying in Rome. In Europe, “colleges” usually refer to student residences rather than schools or universities.
ARCER was established in 1989 after an assembly held in the Mexican Pontifical College, with the approval of the statute by the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, now known as the Dicastery for Culture and Education.
The association seeks to stimulate dialogue among the rectors regarding the life of their institutes and to act as a spokesperson for the rectors’ common requests to the dicasteries of the Roman Curia and other bodies that influence the life of the seminaries and colleges in Rome.