CamSur has new bishop
NAGA CITY—The more than a million Catholics in Camarines Sur have a new archbishop.
Archbishop Rolando Tria Tirona, OCD, DD, was appointed by the Holy See as the 34th bishop and/or 4th Archbishop of Diocese of Caceres. The news of Bishop Tirona’s appointment was published in Rome on Sept. 8.
Tirona, 66, who headed the Prelature of Infanta in Quezon province prior to his assignment here, will take over the archdiocese from Archbishop Leonardo Z. Legaspi, OP, 76, who led the Catholics in Camarines Sur for 28 years.
The designation of Tirona was announced by Legaspi himself during the Holy Mass he officiated at the cathedral here Sunday.
Tirona was born in Kawit, Cavite, on July 22, 1946, and finished his elementary and secondary education at Centro Escolar University in 1952 and 1958, respectively, according to the resume provided by Fr. Louie Occiano of the Commission on Communications of the Archdiocese of Caceres.
He completed a degree in political science at San Beda College before he entered San Carlos Seminary in Makati to finish philosophy in 1968.
Ordination
He was ordained priest on April 21, 1974, in Rome. He was named bishop on Dec. 29, 1994, in Manila Cathedral and was assigned bishop of the Prelature of Infanta in the same year.
He was installed Bishop of Malolos on January 28, 1997. In June 2003, the late Pope John Paul II appointed him as Bishop-Prelate of Infanta where he has been serving for nine years now.
Legaspi, who is spending his last Peñafrancia fiesta as the de facto head of the Archdiocese of Caceres, was president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines for two terms.
Under his watch for almost three decades, Legaspi was able to increase the number of parishes from 39 to 75 and from at least two to an average of eight ordinations per year of the Archdiocese of Caceres.
At present, the archdiocese has 230 priests, 175 of whom ordained by Legaspi. Aside from the parishes, 34 religious congregations for women and eight religious congregations for men are located within the area of jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Caceres.
