POPE Francis has appointed Fr. Socrates Mesiona as the new bishop of Puerto Princesa in Palawan province, replacing the 77-year-old Bishop Pedro Arigo, who resigned after serving the diocese for 20 years.
Mesiona, a known missiologist, will be the seventh bishop of the vicariate since its establishment in 1910.
The 53-year-old bishop-elect is currently the executive secretary of the CBCP’s Commission on Mission and national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the Philippines.
Mesiona was born in Tagbilaran City, Bohol on Sept. 17, 1963.
After his secondary school studies, he studied Philosophy at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary in Tagbilaran and Theology at the Divine Word School of Theology in Tagaytay City.
He was ordained a priest on April 14, 1989 as a member of the Mission Society of the Philippines, where he also served as its former Superior General.
In 1996, the bishop-elect also obtained a Licentiate in Missiology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
Mesiona had also served as Rector of the Mission Society of the Philippines in Tagaytay City and parish priest of the Our Lady of the Abandoned in Mandaluyong City.
He is also a member of the International Association of Catholic Missiologists.
