Pope names new Catarman bishop

Auxiliary Bishop Nolly Buco of Antipolo. —CBCP NEWS

Pope Francis appointed on Friday Bishop Nolly Buco of Antipolo as the new bishop of Catarman in Northern Samar, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said on its website. The 60-year-old Buco has been the apostolic administrator of Catarman since December 2023, following the resignation of Bishop Emmanuel Trance due to health reasons. A canon lawyer, Buco, has been the judicial vicar or head of the National Tribunal of Appeals, the body handling annulment of Catholic marriages in the country, since January this year. He served as assistant judicial vicar of the tribunal’s Antipolo court of first instance in 2000 and named the local judicial vicar four years later. Buco also oversees the CBCP Office of Dispensation and Dismissal, which handles cases of clerics. Born in Baganga, Davao Oriental, in November 1963, the prelate took philosophy and theology at the Sacred Heart Seminary in Palo, Leyte, and Immaculate Concepcion Major Seminary in Guiguinto, Bulacan. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1993 and to the episcopacy when he was named auxiliary Antipolo bishop in 2018. He has earned three doctorates: anthropology from the University of the Philippines in 2003, canon law from the University of Santo Tomas in 2004, and juridical sciences from San Beda College in Manila in 2016. Buco is the second bishop of Catarman, which was erected in 1974.—JEROME ANING