Father Andrés Napoleón Romero Cárdenas, of the Schoenstatt Institute of Diocesan Priests has been appointed bishop of Barahona in the Dominican Republic

VATICAN/DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, org. On the 24^th of February 2015, Holy Father Francis appointed Father Andrés Napoleón Romero Cárdena as bishop of Barahona (area 6,973, population 396,270, Catholics 215,000, priests 28, permanent deacons 2, religious 54), Dominican Republic. The bishop-elect was born in Ramonal Arriba, Dominican Republic in 1967 and was ordained a priest in 1995. He holds a licentiate in philosophy and letters and in religious sciences from the Pontifical University Mater et Magistra, Dominican Republic, and in biblical theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University, and has served in a number of pastoral and academic roles, including parish vicar, formator in the minor seminary and diocesan director for priestly vocations, professor of sacred scripture and research methodology, dean of the faculties of philosophy and theology, and formator at the St. Thomas Aquinas Pontifical major seminary. He is currently parish priest of the Cathedral of Santa Ana in the diocese of San Francisco de Macoris. He has belonged to the Schoenstatt Institute of Diocesan Priests since 1999.

After Ignazio Sanna (Italy), Robert Zollitsch(Germany), Fausto Mejía (Dominican Republic) and Michael Gerber (Germany), Father Andrés Napoleón Romero Cárdenas is now the 5^th bishop in the Institute of Diocesan Priests. He succeeds Bishop Rafael Leonidas Felipe y Nunez, whose resignation from the pastoral governance of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

The new bishop was ordained as a priest on the 8^th of July 1995. “At the time that Reverend Andrés Napoleón was elected Bishop of the Diocese of Barahona, he was parish priest of “Santa Ana” Cathedral, where he had gained many admirers for the just way he treated the serious social affairs that afflict us and in his homilies he stressed the patriotic values and those of liberation that the heroes and martyrs of the Dominican people embodied, such as Duarte, Luperon and Caamaño.” This can be read in the “El Yaha” newspaper, of San Francisco de Marcoris.

During the last years, the future bishop great care of the Schoenstatt “Gethsemane” Shrine in the Dominican Republic.

Many congratulations, Monsignor Andrés Napoleon, with our prayers…

Original: Spanish. Translation: Celina M. Garza, San Antonio, TX USA