A month after being appointed auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, Bishop Reinaldo Vuni Getalado MSP expressed his ambition to “spiritually nourish” God’s people in the Pacific nation. Source: CNA.
Bishop Hetarado’s episcopal ordination ceremony took place on April 27 at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Avarua, the capital of the Cook Islands. The chief consecrator was Bishop Paul Donohue, the current Bishop of the Cook Islands.
Bishop Hetarado’s ordination mass featured passionate hymns sung in Cook Islands Maori, English, Fijian (iTaukei) and Filipino, and several men, women and clergy wore traditional necklaces called ei kaki as symbols of welcome, love and belonging to the community.
“My desire is to look after God’s sheep in the Cook Islands, provide for them spiritually, organize the parishes and have good and harmonious relationships with the priests in the diocese,” Bishop Hetarado told CNA.
Father Reginald Labilla, president of the Missionary Society of the Philippines (MSP), of which Bishop Hetalado is a member, also attended the ordination ceremony.
“The MSP priests and our bishops [Getalado] “I hope that they will be instruments of renewal for the Church, that they will continue to carry the light of Jesus Christ and give hope to people with the testimony of their lives and the words of their preaching,” Father Lavilla said.
The Cook Islands is a predominantly Protestant country, with 17 percent of the population (about 2,900 people) being Catholic.
Bishop Hetarado is the first bishop of Asian descent in the Cook Islands – his predecessors were from France, Belgium, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
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New Filipino bishop of the Pacific’s Cook Islands wants to ‘spiritually nourish’ his people (Cristina Millare, Latin America)
