POPE FRANCIS has appointed Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo as the new apostolic vicar of Taytay, Palawan, ending the Thomasian priest’s 15-year stint assisting in the Archdiocese of Manila.
Pabillo is not new to Palawan. Pabillo is a former Salesian priest who was incardinated to the Apostolic Vicariate of Puerto Princesa.
Until his appointment as bishop on May 24, 2006 and transfer to Manila, he was the parish priest of the St. Ezequiel Moreno Parish in Palawan.
Pabillo succeeds Bishop Edgardo Juanich in leading the Apostolic Vicariate of Taytay. Juanich resigned in 2018 due to health reasons.
According to the Code of Canon Law, an apostolic vicariate is a small community that “has not yet been established as a diocese due to special circumstances and needs to be shepherded by an apostolic vicar or apostolic prefect who governs it in the name of the Supreme Pontiff.”
Pabillo said the Apostolic Vicariate of Taytay is a “mission territory,” being one of the “youngest” ecclesiastical territories, the “poorest” in terms of material resources as a Church and “challenging” in terms of location.
“I thank the Holy Father that in the near twilight of my life, I am still given a chance to work in a mission territory and to live poor among the poor—the fisherfolks, the subsistence farmers and the indigenous peoples,” Pabillo said during the Mass for the feast day of St. Peter and St. Paul at the Manila Cathedral.
“My saying yes to this assignment is my small way of living out the missio ad gentes (mission to the nations), our theme this year,” Pabillo added.
The prelate said that an installation date had yet to be determined because he still did not know when he would go to Palawan.
“I still don’t know when I would go there to Palawan—that depends on the readiness of the people and the priest[s] there especially in this time of the pandemic,” he said.
Pabillo had served as the apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Manila, which had been sede vacante for 16 months before Cardinal Jose Advincula took over on June 25.
Pabillo was ordained priest by Cardinal Jaime Sin in 1982 after finishing sacred theology at the UST Ecclesiastical Faculties. In 1986, he obtained his licentiate degree in the Sacred Scriptures at the Pontificium Institutum Biblicum in Rome.
Pabillo heads the Commission on the Laity of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).
He previously served as the head of CBCP Episcopal Commission on Social Action – Justice and Peace and the Episcopal Commission on Biblical Apostolate. Christine Joyce A. Paras with reports from Ma. Alena O. Castillo
