Filipino Fr. Moreno named head of Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific
Fr. Antonio Moreno SJ
MANILA— Society of Jesus’ Superior General Fr. Arturo Sosa has appointed a Filipino priest as the new President of the Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific (JCAP).
Fr. Antonio Moreno, who is currently Provincial of the Philippine Jesuit Province, will succeed Australian Fr. Mark Raper who served the post since 2008.
Raper is expected to move to Myanmar where he has been the major superior of the Jesuit mission since 2011.
Assuming office within the next six months, Moreno will work with an assembly of major superiors to coordinate and facilitate the Jesuit mission in Asia.
In his letter dated April 22, Sosa expressed his gratitude to the Philippine Province and asked that its members accept his decision “in the spirit of generosity and trust in God’s Providence”.
“The fact that the Society relies so much on the Philippine Province at this time is surely an indication of the maturity and quality of the Province, which is itself the product of so many fine missionaries from other Provinces who were sent to, began and built up the Philippine Province,” he said.
Prior to his appointment in 2013, Moreno was the President of Ateneo de Zamboanga University.
After his ordination in 1993, Moreno did a brief teaching stint at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary and doing pastoral work in Culion, an island in Palawan province which was once the world’s largest leper colony.
The priest also served as assistant to the Novice Master for three years before he went for studies in the United Kingdom.
In 2005, Moreno was appointed Dean of Arts and Sciences and Vice President for Social Development at Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro City, the post he held just before Ateneo de Zamboanga.
In recent years, Moreno has represented the Jesuit Conference on the Commissio Interprovinciale Permanens (CIP), a board of Provincials or Presidents from each Conference that assists the Superior General with the governance of the inter-Provincial houses and works in Rome, such as the Gregorian University. CBCPNews
