Pope Francis has appointed 66-year-old Ipil Bishop Julius Tonel as the new archbishop of Zamboanga.
According to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) news website, the Vatican announced the appointment on Tuesday.
The archbishop-elect will succeed the late Archbishop Romulo de la Cruz, who died on Dec. 10, 2021. He was 74.
Zamboanga Auxiliary Bishop Moises Cuevas has been the apostolic administrator of the archdiocese.
For his part, the Catholic prelate urged the faithful to pray for the new head of the archdiocese.
“Let us come together as one Body of Christ with the archdiocese to pray for our new archbishop as he begins his new ministry among us. May the Holy Spirit guide and strengthen him as he leads us on the path of faith and spiritual growth,” Cuevas said in a statement.
“May God bless our new archbishop and our local Church of Zamboanga. May we continue to grow in faith, hope and love under his spiritual guidance,” he added.
Tonel was born on Aug. 31, 1956 in Davao City. He studied Philosophy at the San Francis Xavier Regional Major Seminary of Mindanao (SFX-REMASE) and Theology at the University of Santo Tomas Central Seminary in Manila.
He was ordained priest on April 12, 1980 for the Archdiocese of Davao, where he served as its Vicar General and Rector of SFX-REMASE.
The archbishop-elect also holds a licentiate degree in Liturgical Theology from the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Liturgy in Rome.
Pope Benedict XVI appointed him as prelate of then Prelature of Ipil on June 30, 2007. His ordination to the episcopate was held on August 20.
On May 1, 2010, the prelature was elevated to a diocese. Tonel became its first bishop.
Zamboanga is one of 16 archdioceses in the country. It is the first of the four in Mindanao including Cagayan de Oro, Davao and Cotabato.
In 1910, Zamboanga became a separate diocese from Cebu, becoming the mother diocese of the Catholic Church in southern Philippines.
The archdiocese also has as its suffragans the Diocese of Ipil, the Apostolic Vicariate of Jolo, and the Prelature of Isabela de Basilan. (PNA)
