Pope Francis names new Tuguegarao archbishop

FILE: Archbishop-elect Ricardo Baccay of Tuguegarao. (Photo from The Diocese of Alaminos via CBCP News/Website)

MANILA — Bishop Ricardo Baccay will return to the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao as its new head.

According to an article posted on the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), Pope Francis on Friday named Baccay as the successor of Archbishop Sergio Utleg, 76, who served the archdiocese for eight years.

The Holy Father has accepted the archbishop’s resignation a year after the latter reached the mandatory retirement age of 75.

Baccay served as the auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese in 2007 until he was transferred to the Diocese of Alaminos in Pangasinan in 2016.

He will be the eighth Archbishop of Tuguegarao in Cagayan province.

The archbishop-elect was born in Tuguegarao in 1961 and was ordained a priest in 1987.

Baccay has been serving as chairman of the Commission on Bioethics of the CBCP.

During the bishops’ plenary assembly last July, he was elected as a member of the new CBCP Permanent Council.

No official date has been set on when the archbishop-elect would be installed.

In the meantime, the Vatican has named Utleg as apostolic administrator “sede vacante” until Baccay takes canonical possession.