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

Fr. Rolando de la Rosa. FILE PHOTO

A former rector of the University of Santo Tomas is set to become the first Asian rector of a top Roman university.

The Order of Preachers announced on its Facebook page that Fr. Rolando de la Rosa, O.P. was named rector of Rome’s Angelicum, or the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Pontificia Universita’ S.Tomasso D’Aquino).

De la Rosa will succeed fellow Dominican Fr. Miroslav Konštanc Adam, O.P. and will serve a four-year term as Angelicum rector from September 1, 2016 to 2020.

He served three terms as rector of the 405-year-old UST, the oldest and only Pontifical university in Asia, from 1990 to 1998 and from 2007 to 2012. A pontifical university is a Catholic university established by and directly under the authority of the Holy See.

In 2004, he also headed the Commission on Higher Education. He quit the post barely a year later.

Among Angelicum’s notable alumni is no less than the late Pope Saint John Paul II.

In 2014, Pope Francis appointed UST Vice Chancellor Fr. Gerard Timoner III, O.P., prior provincial of the Dominican Province of the Philippines, as a member of the International Theological Commission. He was the fourth Filipino to be named in the Vatican commission.

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