Bishop Antonio Palang, retired prelate of the Apostolic Vicariate of San Jose in Occidental Mindoro for 16 years, died on Wednesday, April 21. He was 74.
The prelate died of cardiac arrest in Cebu City, said Monsignor Bernardo Pantin, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.
A native of Consolacion town in Cebu, Bishop Palang was ordained priest for the Society of the Divine Word in 1972.
The late Pope John Paul II appointed Bishop Palang apostolic administrator of the Vicariate Apostolic of San Jose, Occidental Mindoro on June 26, 2000.
On March 1, 2002, he was appointed vicar apostolic. He was installed as a bishop on May 31, 2002, and served until February 2016.
He was also assigned to St. Augustine Minor Seminary in Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro in the early 1970s and 1980s.
He retired early in 2018 at the age of 71, four years earlier than the age at which bishops must offer the pope their resignation.
