Vatican announces Pope Leo XIV's first Filipino appointment
The new bishop for the Prelature of Infanta is the first Filipino appointee of Pope Leo XIV, according to the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) News.
Fr. Dave Dean Capucao, 59, will be the fourth prelate of Infanta, succeeding retired Bishop Bernardino Cortez, who had led the prelature since January 2015.
"The pope accepted Cortez's resignation, which he submitted upon turning 75 in July 2024 — the age at which bishops are required to offer their resignation under Ecclesiae Sanctae, the 1966 apostolic letter by Pope Paul VI," CBCP News reported.
Capucao was ordained a priest for the Infanta prelature in 1994 and then was appointed founding pastor of a village parish in a poor area of Aurora province, where he served for six years.
He earned a master's degree in intercultural and interreligious theology at the Catholic University of Nijmegen now Radboud University.
He worked as a junior researcher and worked on a dissertation on religion and ethnocentrism, which he defended in 2009.
It ws in 2006 that Capucao started parish work in the Netherlands and a year later was appointed a member of the pastoral team of Saint Ludger Parish in the area of Lichtenvoorde and Winterswijk.
"The bishop-elect also holds a doctorate in sacred theology from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium," according to the report.
He returned to the Philippines in 2011, served as a formator then rector at the prelature's St. Joseph Formation House (SJFH) in Quezon City.
Capucao currently serves as president of the Center for Empirical Studies on Spirituality, Theology and Religion–Asia (CESSTREL-ASIA), a member of the prelature's Presbyteral Council and other international organizations. — BAP, GMA Integrated News
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