September 16, 2015, 10:45p.m. – A DOMINICAN friar
teaching in UST was installed as the new prior of Santo Domingo Convent in Quezon
City last Sept. 15.
Fr. Roland Mactal, O.P., lecturer at the UST Faculty of
Philosophy, replaced Fr. Giuseppe Arsciwals, O.P., as prior of the convent and
rector of Santo Domingo Church, mother church of Filipino Dominicans.
Mactal said lay people should be more active in church
activity. He said that he would work to maintain the laity’s devotion to
the Blessed Virgin Mary, with the La Naval de Manila feast slated in October.
“We will enhance the liturgy and our devotion to the Blessed
Mother. ‘Yun ang ating plano,” Mactal said.
He added that the church, which is also the La Naval
national shrine, had scheduled several activities for the upcoming Jubilee Year
of Mercy.
“There will be an opening of the Jubilee door here in Santo
Domingo this November,” Mactal said.
The new convent prior said members of the Dominican
community in Santo Domingo, where the Dominican Studentate is also located,
should get master’s degrees in line with the Commission on Higher Education’s
(CHEd) mandate for faculty members at the tertiary level.
“Ine-encourage ko all of our brothers to finish their
masters’ degree para side by side, we would be following CHEd,” Mactal told
the Varsitarian.
Mactal will serve a term of three years. He signed his
appointment as prior last Aug. 18.
Mactal served as chaplain of the Shrine of Our Lady of the
Rosary of Manaoag from 2009 to 2015.
Mactan authored the article titled, “Mariological
Developments after the Second Vatican Council and the Impact of Marian Devotion
in the Philippines” for Philippiniana Sacra, official publication of the
Ecclesiastical Faculties, in 2007.
Mactal worked on his licentiate and doctorate in sacred
theology in UST from 1998 to 2000. Lea Mat P. Vicencio
