Vatican – Bishop Walter Guillén Soto, SDB, appointed first bishop of diocese of Gracias, in Honduras

27 April 2021

(ANS - Vatican City) - The Press Office of the Holy See announced today, 27 April 2021, that the Holy Father Francis has erected the new diocese of Gracias, in Honduras, and has appointed the Salesian Msgr. Walter Guillén Soto, who just last November had been appointed titular bishop of Nasbinca and auxiliary of Tegucigalpa.

The new diocese was erected with territory dismembered from the Diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán, and is a suffragan of the same Metropolitan Church of Tegucigalpa. It covers an area of 7,357 km2 and has a population of 574,693 inhabitants, animated by 21 parishes and 28 diocesan priests - while there are no religious priests; at the same time, however, 17 seminarians and 22 religious were present.

Msgr. Walter Guillén Soto, S.D.B. was born on 6 December 1961 in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. He obtained a licentiate in theology from the Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala; a licentiate in pedagogy and educational sciences from the Universidad Don Bosco in San Salvador; and a doctorate in education and pedagogical sciences from the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (Spain).

He made his religious profession as Salesian of Don Bosco on 6 June 1986 and received priestly ordination on 5 November 1988.

In his religious life he has held the following positions: Academic Director of the San Miguel Institute in Tegucigalpa; Director of the Archdiocesan Theological Institute of Tegucigalpa; Director of the Ricaldone Institute in San Salvador; Director of the Don Bosco College of San José, Costa Rica; Director of the Instituto Técnico Don Bosco in Panama City, Panama; Director of the Don Bosco AC Technological Institute in Saltillo, Mexico; special secretary of the Archbishop of Tegucigalpa, card. Salesian Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga; Rector of the San Juan Bosco Shrine of Tegucigalpa, and since 2018, Chaplain General of the Catholic University of Honduras. He has also served as President of the Catholic Federation of Panama and President of the Inter-American Confederation of Catholic Education (CIEC).

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