POPE Francis appointed Friday, October 18, Bishop Ricardo Baccay as the new Archbishop of Tuguegarao in Cagayan.
In a report by CBCP News, Baccay is set to succeed Archbishop Sergio Utleg, 76, who has served the archdiocese for the past eight years.
“The bishop of Alaminos since 2016 will be the eighth archbishop of Tuguegarao,” noted the official news agency of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP)
The appointment, the report said, comes after the Pontiff accepted Utleg’s resignation a year after he reached the mandatory retirement age of 75.
Born in 1961 in Tuguegarao, the archbishop-elect was ordained as priest in 1987.
In 2007, he was appointed as auxiliary bishop of Tuguegarao.
Nine years later, he was designated as the bishop of Alaminos in Pangasinan.
At the CBCP, Baccay has served as chairman of the Episcopal Commission on Bioethics.
He was also elected as a member of the CBCP Permanent Council and will serve over the next two years.
As of Saturday, there is still no schedule as to when Baccay will be installed.
In the meantime, Pope Francis has assigned Utleg as the apostolic administrator “sede vacante” of Tuguegarao until Baccay takes canonical possession. (HDT/SunStar Philippines)