Guam’s Catholics gathered in the capital city of Hagåtña to meet their new archbishop — a Filipino.
Archbishop Ryan Jimenez was installed last August 15 as the new shepherd of the Archdiocese of Agaña, the old name of the island’s capital, in a ceremony steeped in customs and traditions.
The 52-year-old took canonical possession of the archdiocese during Mass held at the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica.
In his homily, the archbishop assured to follow the path of synodality as he begins the new phase of his ministry.
“We’ll walk together in the spirit of synodality, a word that we are all familiar with,” Jimenez said.
“As individuals and as a church community, we are very much aware of the many challenges we have to face but we should be aware that the Lord is with us always.”
“He will continue to do great things for us if only we let him… if only we open ourselves to him, to the Lord, like Mary, in all humility and docility,” he added.
Among those in the historic occasion were Portuguese Cardinal Américo Aguiar of Setúbal and more than a dozen bishops from the Pacific, Oceania, US, and the Philippines.
“Ryan is a blessing of God to Agaña… to your people,” Aguiar said at the and of the Mass, drawing applause from the congregation.
Also present was Mons. Giosuè Busti, the Chargé d’affaires of the Apostolic Nunciature in New Zealand to represent the pope.
Jimenez was serving as bishop of Chalan Kanoa on Saipan since 2016 when Pope Francis appointed him to the Agaña archdiocese on July 6.
He is the fourth archbishop of Guam, where about 87% of its more than 168,000 population are Catholics.
Jimenez succeeded American Archbishop Michael Byrnes, who stepped down due to health reasons in March 2023.
During the vacancy, Fr. Romeo Convocar, also of Filipino descent, served as apostolic administrator of the archdiocese.
Born and raised in Dumaguete City, Jimenez was a migrant worker in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands starting in 1994 and taught at Eskuelan San Francisco de Borja, a Catholic school on the island of Rota.
In 1999, he was accepted to the seminary program of the Diocese of Chalan Kanoa. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 8, 2003.
In 2010, he was appointed apostolic administrator of Chalan Kanoa and, in 2016, was named as its second bishop.
At present, Jimenez is the president of the Episcopal Conference of the Pacific, or CEPAC.
He is also the vice president of the Federation of Catholic Bishops Conferences of Oceania, FCBCO, which includes the bishops’ conferences of Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and CEPAC.
Jimenez also serves as consultant to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs.
