Sunday 21 July 2013

Congratulations Monsignor Robert LLanos

The following article was taken from the Newsday newspaper dated Sunday July 14th 2013
 


Pope Francis yesterday appointed Vicar General Monsignor Robert Llanos as Auxiliary Bishop for the Archdiocese of Port-of-Spain. Archbishop Joseph Everard Harris announced the appointment at the Archbishop’s House at 27 Maraval Road, St Clair.
Monsignor Robert Llanos, born in Port-of-Spain and an ordained priest since June 1991, will help Harris run the 19 departments and 62 parishes in the Catholic Archdiocese, all of which need “episcopal oversight,” said Harris. The Auxiliary position is an assistant; he will not succeed Archbishop Harris.

Ordination is tentatively set for the middle of September: “The problem is that we don’t have a Cathedral,” commented Archbishop Harris, who noted that the San Fernando church, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, can only hold a little over 600 people. “Perhaps we should go to the Grand Stand,” joked Harris, “but we’d prefer to have ordinations in the Church.”

Previous Archbishops in Trinidad have had the assistance of Auxiliary Bishops. Finbar Ryan had one — the Irish Dominican William Fitzgerald; Archbishop Pantin also had one — John Mendes.

Llanos’s experience includes counselling, directing spiritual retreats, providing parish priest duties in many areas including Toco, Arima and Princes Town, chairing the Family Life Commission, and serving as Vicar General of the Port-of-Spain Archdiocese (ongoing). He has a BA in Theology from UWI (1991).

Llanos attended Fatima College, Woodbrook until 1978. He joked on Saturday about the unofficial friendly rivalry between St Mary’s College and Fatima College on the number of Bishops each school has produced: apparently the tally is three for St Mary’s, two for Fatima (so far).

Asked whether the Pope might be visiting Trinidad soon, Harris noted that the Pope’s schedule is fixed one-and-a-half years in advance. Harris said he hoped the Pope might be able to visit by May 2015.

The Catholic Archdiocese in Trinidad has existed since 1850. In Trinidad and Tobago, Roman Catholicism is still the largest religion, with 285,671 adherents, compared to 240,100 Hindus, according to the 2011 Population Census released in February this year. The religions currently growing most rapidly in Trinidad are the Pentecostal/Evangelical/Full Gospel denominations, which increased their numbers by 108.4 percent in ten years, according to the 2011 Census.
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