Zamboanga City has new archbishop

Please click below to link related article 
http://www.solarnews.ph/news/regional/2014/05/14/new-zamboanga-city-archbishop-installed#.U3SIDnbjIcU

ZAMBOANGA CITY, May 14 (PNA) -– Finally, the Archdiocese of this city has a new leader with the official installation Wednesday of Archbishop Romulo Dela Cruz.

Papal Nuncio Guiseppe Pinto, the Apostolic Nunciature to the Philippines, presided the installation of Dela Cruz in a ceremony held at the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

Dela Cruz, 66, was named by Pope Francis as this city’s archbishop last March 15.

“I thank God for giving me this opportunity to serve Zamboanga Archdiocese,” Dela Cruz said in a press conference.

Dela Cruz said he would have to listen to the local clergy and the laity to be able to know the issues and challenged confronting this city’s archdiocese.

“I am confident that the Lord who blesses us, who gives us the grace that we need, will help us go through our difficult days in Zamboanga if there are and if there will be,” he said.

Dela Cruz said being named as the Archbishop of this city is his fourth assignment since he became bishop in 1988.

He served as the bishop of Basilan prelature for 13 years from 1988 until 2001.

In 2001, he was named as the bishop of Antique where he served for seven years and then in 2008 appointed as bishop of Kidapawan and served for a period of six years.

Pontificio Istituto Missioni Estere (PIME) priest Fr. Sebastiano D’Ambra said the installation of Dela Cruz “is a good moment for the Catholic Church” here that has been without a bishop for the past two years.

The appointment of Dela Cruz as the archbishop of this city came two years after his predecessor, Bishop Romulo Valles was made archbishop of Davao City last 2012. (PNA)
LAP/TPGJR/UTB