MANILA--Pope Benedict XVI has created Wednesday a new diocese in the country and named its first bishop.
Benedict XVI elevated the Prelature of Libmanan into a full diocese, in the province of Camarines Sur, and appointed as its bishop, Jose Rojas, 52, until now Bishop-Prelate of said ecclesiastical territory.
The announcement was made by Archbishop Edward Joseph Adams, Pope’s envoy to the Philippines, in a letter sent to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).
Archbishop Adams said the news was officially published in Rome today at 12:00 noon (7:00 p.m. local time).
The elevation came a month after the CBCP endorsed to the Vatican the petition of the Prelature of Libmanan to have it elevated to the rank of diocese.
Through an apostolic letter dated December 9, 1989, the late Pope John Paul II created the Prelature of Libmanan, canonically erected on March 19, 1990. A suffragan of the Archdiocese of Caceres, the prelature has a land area of 1, 862 square kilometers which comprises Camarines Sur’s first congressional district, plus one town in the second district.
The Libmanan diocese has nearly 500,000 Catholics. It currently has 27 parishes and 51 priests. The Philippine Catholic Church now has a total of 16 archdioceses, 52 dioceses, 7 apostolic vicariates, 5 territorial prelatures and one military ordinariate.
The CBCP has more than 100 active member cardinals, archbishops and bishops as well as more than two dozen honorary members. (Roy Lagarde)