Caceres celebrates 428th anniversary as diocese

August 14 was the 428th anniversary of the creation of the Diocese of Caceres.

Because of its vast distance from the City of Manila and due to the increase of the faithful in Nueva Caceres, Pope Clement VIII issued a Papal Bull on 14 August 1595 in which he declared, “likewise forever, and establish the said town into a City which shall be called of Cáceres; and in the same town of Cáceres, thus erected into a City, we erect the church already constructed or which will be constructed under the advocacy of St. John the Evangelist, into a cathedral church, which shall be suffragan of the bishop of Manila.”

According to Dr. Domingo Abella’s Bicol Annals, the Diocese “would be known in Vatican documents as the “Ecclesia de Caceres in Indiis Orientalibus” (Church of Caceres in the Oriental Indies), what to us... was the Bishopric of Nueva Caceres.”

In 1951, after 356 years as a Diocese, Caceres was elevated to an Archdiocese.

As we celebrate this important anniversary, let us give praise and thanks to God for the gift of our local Church, and ask that he may strengthen us as we look forward to the Diamond Jubilee of our Archdiocese of Caceres. (Archdiocese of Caceres FB post)