Pope Francis appoints priest Angel Román idígoras new bishop of Albacete

Ángel Román Idigoras, a Spanish priest of the diocese of Alcalá de Henares has been designated by Pope Francis as the new bishop of the Diocese of Albacete (Spain), whose headquarters was vacant for almost a year, after the resignation of Mons. Ángel Fernández.

The new prelate, which will receive episcopal ordination on May 3 in the Cathedral of San Juan Bautista de Albacete, has expressed how the appointment has taken him by surprise, during A public appearance.

“First of all, share with you the surprise of my appointment. I have not heard rumors or anything. Suddenly the news came to me, ”he said at the beginning of his speech, in which he confessed not to feel prepared for the entrusted task.

“I am not prepared, I am very accommodated in my busy life, here I control and what they propose is a total decoloque. I don’t know how to move in those environments, I am more to walk at home, ”he said simply.

Despite these reluctance, the new bishop of Albacete found in certain passages of writing the breath to accept the new call and say: “I am overwhelmed, but cheerful in the Lord. Because I really trust the one I have trust. ”

So much so that your episcopal motto will be Rejoice in the Lord(happy in the Lord): “That joy in the Lord is what I want to live and infect at all times. I do not receive the mission as a recognition of anything, but as a service and an undeserved gift of the fullness of the priestly order. For this reason I thank Pope Francis, for his generosity, and his trust, ”he added.

Despite the confidence to live with joy as a pastor, the priest has not stopped sharing the tear that the diocese of Alcalá de Henares means after 30 years.

“The feeling is to be torn from the root. But as I always say, and it is always hard when you have to live it, the pain is the other face of true love. There is the delivery of the Lord in the Cross, ”he said.

However, he said that he faces his new stage as an evangelical ardor: “But, God lives! That I am passionate, knowing that I am going to add to my life, my new land and my new people.”

Knowing the news of his appointment, Mons. Román reinterpreted his three decades of priest “as a life in Nazareth”, where the Lord has been preparing for the new task.

“I put myself in the hands of the only Mary, but under the advocations of loneliness, the rosary, the val and the plains. And I do not ask for anything in particular. Because she, as in Cana’s weddings, is aware of everything. He knows how to take care and what he has to ask his son at all times, ”he concluded.

Born in Madrid in 1968, he entered as a minor seminarian in 1984 and was ordered in 1994. Bachelor of Magisterium and Sociology, he is a bachelor in theology from the San Dámaso University of Madrid.

In addition to the parish priest, in the Diocese of Alcalá de Henares it has served as chaplain of the Estremera Penitentiary Center, director of the Diocesan Secretariat for the Movements of Catholic Action and Responsible Synodal Deputy for the Diocesan Phase of the Synod on Sinodality, among other positions.

The Diocese of Albacete was erected in 1949 and is a vote of the Archdiocese of Toledo, primada of Spain. According to data from the Spanish Episcopal Conference, 388,000 souls are entrusted.

The pastoral work takes place through 195 parishes, has 145 diocesan priests, of which 66 are retired, and eleven presbyters belonging to religious institutes. With them collaborate 13 permanent deacons and has 4 major seminarians.