Auxiliary Bishop Ruben Labajo | Photo from CBCP News
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The first bishop of the newly established Diocese of Prosperidad in Agusan del Sur is from Cebu.
He is Cebu Auxiliary Bishop Ruben Labajo appointed by Pope Francis, the Vatican announced in its noon bulletin on Tuesday.
Labajo was first ordained as priest for the Archdiocese of Cebu on June 10, 1994.
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Later, he was appointed as auxiliary bishop of Cebu by Pope Francis in June 2022 and was ordained to the episcopate on Aug. 19, 2022.
Feast day of Our Lady of Rosary
Labajo said, in his message uploaded on The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cebu’s Facebook page, that he learned about the appointment on October 7, “the feast day of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary,” through the Papal Nuncio.
“Lipay ko nga (I am happy that) the announcement happened on the very day of the Blessed Mother…I already offered my life totally to the Lord through the hands of the Blessed Mother,” Labajo said.
He added that the Pope did not ask him to respond immediately to the appointment and told him “Don’t give your answer right away. I give you maybe a day or two then you say what’s your response.”
Labajo said that the Pope advised him to think it over whether to accept it or not.
“When I was announced that I would become a bishop, I cried a lot…hilak ko kay di ko angayan ini. Pero karon giingnan ko nga mahimo kong obispo, nikatawa ra ko but I do not know where did that come from. It was a mixed feeling,” he said.
(When I was announced that I would become a bishop, I cried a lot…I cried because I was not worthy to be in this position. But when I am told that I am a bishop, I just laughed but I do not know where did that come from. It was a mixed feeling.)
Diocese of Prosperidad
According to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines in its website, the Diocese of Prosperidad comprises the province of Agusan del Sur. It was ‘carved out of the 57-year-old Diocese of Butuan, which now covers only Agusan del Norte.’
The decision to split the Butuan diocese into two stemmed from a petition filed by Bishop Cosme Damian Almedilla of Butuan in 2023, the CBCP report said.
The new diocese will now be the 87th diocese in the Philippines and will be a suffragan of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro, the CBCP added.