MANILA, Philippines – Pope Francis named Father Romeo Duetao Convocar, a priest from Iloilo in the Philippines, as the new bishop of the Diocese of Chalan Kanoa in the Northern Mariana Islands.
The appointment of Convocar as bishop of Chalan Kanoa was announced by the Vatican at noon (Rome time) or 7 pm (Manila time) on Monday, November 25.
In Saipan, it was former Manila archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle who made the announcement during the Diocese of Chalan Kanoa’s 40th anniversary. Tagle, the highest ranking Filipino in the Catholic Church, is now pro-prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelization.
“You have a new bishop!” Tagle said as churchgoers cheered and clapped. The time of the Vatican announcement was around 9 pm in Saipan.
After leading a prayer for the new bishop, Tagle said: “This morning, when I said life begins at 40, I did not know that tonight, there will be a new beginning. We have only just begun. Congratulations to the diocese, congratulations!”
The Diocese of Chalan Kanoa covers the entire Northern Mariana Islands, a United States territory in the western Pacific Ocean.
Ninety percent of its population can be found on the island of Saipan, where Filipinos are a dominant ethnic group. More than 19,000 Filipinos comprise 41% of Saipan’s people.
The new bishop of Saipan was born in Janiuay, Iloilo, on April 13, 1970.
He attended high school and studied philosophy at Saint Joseph Seminary in Dumaguete City, and completed his theological studies at Saint Joseph Regional Seminary in Jaro, Iloilo City.
Ordained to the Catholic priesthood on September 17, 1996, he was first a priest of the Military Ordinariate of the Philippines, which serves men and women in uniform such as those in the military and the police.
He was military chaplain of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) with the rank of captain. He once served at the AFP Central Command, the Cavite Naval Base, and the military base at Fort Bonifacio.
He later moved to the Archdiocese of Agaña in Guam, where he has served in various capacities since 2012. He was once the vicar general or right-hand man of then-archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes in Agaña. He later became the archdiocese’s apostolic administrator or caretaker when Byrnes resigned in 2023.
Byrnes was eventually succeeded by a Filipino, Ryan Pagente Jimenez of Dumaguete, as archbishop of Agaña.
When Jimenez became archbishop of Agaña, Convocar was named apostolic administrator of Diocese of Chalan Kanoa, which Jimenez used to lead.
Convocar is among the growing number of Filipinos appointed as Catholic bishops in different parts of the globe, as Catholicism’s center of gravity shifts from Europe to the global south. In the meantime, Filipino migrants have served as missionaries to the farthest places of the globe, with the Pope himself challenging them to “continue to be smugglers of the faith.” – Rappler.com
