The Vatican has confirmed the appointment of Father Gregory Ramon Gaston of the Holy Apostles Senior Seminary in Makati City as the next rector of the Pontificio Collegio Filippino in Rome.

The congregations’ prefect, Zenon Cardinal Grocholewski, sent a communiqué about Gaston’s appointment to the Manila Archdiocese.

The CBCPNews, the official news service provider of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), said Gaston will succeed Monsignor Ruperto Santos who was appointed bishop of the Diocese of Balanga last April.

As rector, the 45-year-old Gaston will oversee the management of the Pontificio Collegio Filippino, the residence for Filipino priests doing further studies in Rome.

Pontificio Collegio Filippino is a community that provides a special type of priestly formation that is significantly influenced by a proximity to the Pope and the cultural diversity that only Rome provides.
Gaston served as an official of the Pontifical Council for the Family in the Vatican from 2002 to 2007.

He was sent in 1988 by the late Jaime Cardinal Sin to the University of Navarre in Spain for his seminary formation.

In 1993, he was ordained priest at the Vatican by Pope John Paul II and served as assistant priest in Mandaluyong City’s San Roque Parish as his first assignment.

He is a known critic of measures that seek to promote the use of contraceptives and is vocal on issues concerning family and life.

Before he became a priest, he finished a degree in Zoology at the University of the Philippines and obtained his doctorate at the Sacred Theology at the Angelicum in Rome in 1997.

In the same year, he did a short Post-Doctoral Fellowship Program in Biothics at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Boston, USA.