Pope’s 1st Pinoy appointee is bishop of Infanta

MANILA, Philippines — Pope Leo XIV has made his first appointment for the Philippines, designating Fr. Dave Dean Capucao bishop of the Prelature of Infanta in Quezon province.

Capucao, 59, will be the fourth bishop of Infanta, replacing retired Bishop Bernardino Cortez, who served the prelature from January 2015.

The pope accepted the resignation of Cortez, who turned 75 years old in July 2024.

Upon reaching the age of 75 years, bishops are required to offer their resignation as provided under the Ecclesiae Sanctae or the 1966 apostolic letter of Pope Paul VI.

Capucao was ordained priest on Oct. 3, 1994. He was immediately appointed founding pastor of a village parish in Aurora province, where he served for six years.

Capucao was sent to the Netherlands in 2000 to study at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, now Radboud University, where he obtained a master’s degree in intercultural and interreligious theology.

He holds a doctorate degree in sacred theology, which he obtained from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium.

From 2002 to 2006, Capucao worked as junior researcher at the university’s theology faculty, where he wrote a thesis on religion and ethnocentrism. He defended his dissertation in 2009.