Fr. Ronald Anthony Timoner has been chosen as diocesan administrator of the Diocese of Daet, nearly two weeks after it was declared “sede vacante”.
Archbishop Rex Andrew Alarcon of Caceres on Wednesday appointed Timoner as caretaker of the diocese he left behind after assuming his new post on May 2.
In appointing the priest, the archbishop invoked Canon 421, paragraph 2 of the Code of Canon Law.
As administrator, the 52-year-old priest will oversee the affairs of the diocese until a new bishop is appointed and takes possession.
Prior to his appointment, Timoner has been serving as the diocese’s vicar general.
Timoner already served as Daet’s administrator from April 2017, when Bishop Gilbert Garcera was installed archbishop of Lipa, until March 2019 when Alarcon took over the diocese.
The priest is also the younger brother of Fr. Gerard Francisco Timoner, the first Asian and current head of the Order of Preachers, or the Dominican Order, worldwide.