Pope Francis appoints new Bayombong bishop

Bishop Jose Elmer Mangalinao (pcitured), who is currently the Auxiliary Bishop of Lingayen-Dagupan, will succeed Bishop Ramon Villena who retired in 2016. (Photo: GLENN MUNOZ LOPEZ/CBCP News)

MANILA — Bishop Jose Elmer Mangalinao has been appointed to head the 36-year-old Diocese of Bayombong in Nueva Vizcaya, according to an article posted on the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) news website.

A bishop for just almost two years, Mangalinao will be the third leader of the diocese with more than half a million Catholics in 20 parishes.

Mangalinao, who is currently the Auxiliary Bishop of Lingayen-Dagupan, will succeed Bishop Ramon Villena who retired in 2016.

He grew up in Cabiao, Nueva Ecija and was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Cabanatuan in 1985.

Few years after his ordination, the Catholic prelate earned a licentiate in theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

Before he became a bishop, Mangalinao was serving as the Vicar General of the Cabanatuan diocese and the president of the College of the Immaculate Conception.

Other posts he held include formator at the Maria Assumpta Seminary and parish priest at the Saint Isidore the Worker parish in Talavera town, the Three Kings parish in Gapan, and later on at the St.

Nicholas of Tolentine Cathedral.

In May 2016, he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan, currently headed by Archbishop Socrates Villegas.

The Catholic Church in Bayombong has yet to announce a date for Mangalinao’s official installation.