The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Lipa is the head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lipa and the

Metropolitan Bishop In Christian churches with episcopal polity, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or simply metropolitan (alternative obsolete form: metropolite), pertains to the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a metropolis. Originally, the term referred to the b ...

of the

suffragan diocese A suffragan diocese is one of the dioceses other than the metropolitan archdiocese that constitute an ecclesiastical province. It exists in some Christian denominations, in particular the Catholic Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria ...

s of

Boac British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was the British state-owned airline created in 1939 by the merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. It continued operating overseas services throughout World War II. After the passi ...

, Gumaca, Lucena and the Prelature of Infanta. The most recent

Archbishop In Christian denominations, an archbishop is a bishop of higher rank or office. In most cases, such as the Catholic Church, there are many archbishops who either have jurisdiction over an ecclesiastical province in addition to their own archdi ...

was Ramon Arguelles. He was ordained bishop on Jan. 6, 1994. On May 14, 2004, he was appointed Archbishop of Lipa. Pope Francis accepted Arguelles' letter of resignation on February 2, 2017 and decided to name Bishop of Daet Gilbert Garcera as the eventual successor.

History

When the original Diocese of Lipa was created on April 10, 1910, the Bishop of Lipa had authority over a very vast region of a mostly homogenous Tagalog

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

. The

Bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

used to oversee the

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

s in the provinces of

Batangas Batangas, officially the Province of Batangas ( tl, Lalawigan ng Batangas ), is a province in the Philippines located in the Calabarzon region on Luzon. Its capital is the city of Batangas, and is bordered by the provinces of Cavite and La ...

Laguna Laguna (Italian and Spanish for lagoon) may refer to: People * Abe Laguna (born 1992), American DJ known as Ookay * Andrés Laguna (1499–1559), Spanish physician, pharmacologist, and botanist * Ana Laguna (born 1955), Spanish-Swedish ballet d ...

Quezon Quezon, officially the Province of Quezon ( tl, Lalawigan ng Quezon), is a Provinces of the Philippines, province in the Philippines located in the Calabarzon Regions of the Philippines, region on Luzon. Kalilayan was the first known name of th ...

Marinduque Marinduque (; ), officially the Province of Marinduque, is an island province in the Philippines located in Southwestern Tagalog Region or Mimaropa, formerly designated as Region IV-B. Its capital is the municipality of Boac. Marinduque lies be ...

and

Mindoro Mindoro is the seventh largest and eighth-most populous island in the Philippines. With a total land area of 10,571 km2 ( 4,082 sq.mi ) and has a population of 1,408,454 as of 2020 census. It is located off the southwestern coast of Luz ...

. In 1936, the first territorial re-organisation of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lipa was promulgated with the creation of the Apostolic Prelature of Calapan, thus separating the province of

from the

Archdiocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

. This was followed by the creation of the

Diocese of Lucena The Roman Catholic Diocese of Lucena ( lat, Dioecesis Lucenensis) is a diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines with the seat in Lucena, Philippines, Lucena City. The Roman Rite Latin Church diocese was erected in 1950 from the Ro ...

and the Prelature of Infanta in 1950. Another re-organisation happened in 1967 when the province of Laguna was raised to the rank of a diocese under the titular

Diocese of San Pablo The Diocese of San Pablo (Latin: ''Dioecesis Sancti Pauli in Insulis Philippinis'', Filipino: Diyosesis ng San Pablo, Spanish: ''Diócesis de San Pablo'') is a Roman Catholic diocese which is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Manila. Its patron sa ...

. The Diocese of Boac in Marinduque was created in 1977 and that of Gumaca in 1984. Both dioceses were part of the Diocese of Lucena before their establishment. In 1983 the new Apostolic Vicariate of San Jose in Occidental Mindoro was created. Today the Archdiocese of Lipa is for the province of Batangas alone. But the population has multiplied many times over. The archdiocese is divided into 6 vicariates, each headed by a vicar forane . Except for the parishes in Vicariate IV which are run by the Oblates of St. Joseph, all other parishes are run by the diocesan clergy. There are 49 parishes in all, served by 143 priests. 122 of them diocesan. There are 13 religious brothers, and 197 religious sisters. Catholic schools number 23, high school seminaries 2 and college seminaries 3. Two pastoral centers are being maintained.

Past and Present Prelates of Lipa

References

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Lipa Lipa or LIPA (Cyrillic: Липа) may refer to: Acronym *Liquid Isopropyl alcohol *League for Independent Political Action, a former American progressive political organization *Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, a performing arts school in ...

Christian organizations established in 1910 Roman Catholic dioceses and prelatures established in the 20th century