Ex-UST rector declines presidency of St John Paul II’s school

Fr. Rolando de la Rosa. FILE PHOTO

Former University of Santo Tomas rector Fr. Rolando V. de la Rosa, OP has declined to assume his papally appointed position as new president of the University of Saint Thomas Aquinas or Angelicum in Rome for health reasons.

He was supposed to be installed as Angelicum rector today, Sept. 1.

Father De la Rosa said he was suffering from severe palpitation of the heart.

“The Angelicum of Rome prestigious as it is deserves someone younger and healthier,” said Father De la Rosa, 63.

The Angelicum is the famous pontifical school of the Dominicans in Rome which counts among its illustrious alumni Saint Pope John Paul the Great.

The appointment to an official pontifical school like UST and Angelicum comes from the Sacred Congregation of Catholic Education, the Vatican’s education ministry, and is technically an appointment from the Pope himself.

While Father De la Rosa had initially accepted the nomination, he said he requested recently Dominican Master General Fr Bruno Cadore that he not be inaugurated as rector because of his medical condition.

It is said that UST Hospital physicians had prescribed that Father De la Rosa should not be stressed to prevent medical complications.

Father Cadore, a French Dominican who’s a physician himself, accepted the request.

Last May, it was announced that the Holy See had appointed Father de la Rosa as Angelicum rector to replace Slovakian Fr Miroslav Konstanc Adam. He could have been the first Filipino to head a Roman pontifical academy.

READ: Ex-UST rector to head Pope Saint John Paul II’s former school in Rome

The dean of theology of the UST Ecclesiastical Faculties and head of the UST Grants Office when he was appointed to Rome, Father De la Rosa is now assigned as a simple friar to the Santo Domingo Priory in Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City.

An internationally respected scholar and a former chair of the Commission on Higher Education, Father De la Rosa was UST rector from 1990-1998 and from 2007-2012./rga