21/02/2026
NEWS UPDATE
The Holy See has granted the request of the Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan to proceed with the process to establish the virtuous life and holiness of our first Bishop now called SERVANT OF GOD CESAR MARIA GUERRERO Y RODRIGUEZ.
Servant of God
CESAR MARIA GUERRERO Y RODRIGUEZ
First Bishop of Lingayen
(1885-1961)
Family
Cesar Maria was born to Leon Maria Guerrero and Aurora Dominguez in Ermita, Manila, on January 26, 1885. Education As a child, he exhibited a desire to the religious vocation. He told his father once that he wanted to be a Jesuit, but his father initially directed him to simply study Philosophy, after which, when he asked permission from his father to be a priest, he was instructed to have some career first. He finished law in Santo Tomas and further insisted on becoming a priest. Cesar studied at the Gregorian University in Rome and lived at the Latin American College.
Pastoral Assignment
On October 28, 1914, he was ordained a priest in Rome. He returned to the Philippines, becoming an assistant parish priest in Binondo in 1915. He would later become chaplain of the Hospicio de San Jose in 1917. He went up the mountains for missionary work in San Mateo, Rizal, but this was cut short due to malaria. He was consequently appointed as Secretary to the Archbishop of Manila Michael O’Dougherty.
He was appointed as the first bishop of Lingayen on February 22, 1929. The bishop-elect Cesar struggled long to accept the appointment but had to surrender to will of God. Two months later, he would be consecrated as a bishop on May 24, 1929, on the Feast of Mary, Help of Christians by Arcbishop Michael James O’Doherty of Manila, with Bishop Alfredo Versoza and Bishop Santiago Caragnan Sancho as co consecrators.
On the same year, 1929, he planned to establish a seminary in Binmaley, Pangasinan. The seminary in Pangasinan was consequently named after Mary, Help of Christians after the new bishop was gifted with an image of Mary, Help of Christians, from the then-papal legate, Salesian Archbishop William Pianni. Bishop Guerrero expressed his desire to remove all stain and danger of immorality among the clergy of the diocese.
On December 16, 1937, he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Manila, receiving the Titular See of Limisa. In 1939, he organized the Catholic Action of the Philippines and became its first director. As auxiliary bishop, he supported the Don Bosco School for boys. The war years that followed would cause him agony and taint his reputation. Accused of collaborating with the Japanese, he was charged before the People’s Court for treason after the war, but his case was summarily dismissed in 1946.
He would later retire to a convent in San Francisco del Monte. However, on May 14, 1949, he was reinstated to become the first bishop of San Fernando, Pampanga, where he would propagate the devotion to the Virgen de los Remedios, and establish another seminary and, in Angeles, a convent for Carmelite nuns.
He resigned from the See of San Fernando on March 14, 1957 due to poor health but was made an assistant to the papal throne with the rank of papal count. He stayed at the old Hospicio de San Jose where he once began his ministry.
Death and Burial
Wanting to live like a hermit, he returned to the Hospicio de San Jose to live a contemplative life with the orphans and the aged. He refused a splendid apartment offered by his family, discouraged visitors, and fasted three times a week. The good bishop presaged his own death; he had a tombstone made inscribed with an epitaph –“Caro—dabitur—vermibus” (the flesh will be given to the worms)—two days before his fatal heart attack. He sent word to the Carmelite convent in Angeles that he wished to be buried there. On March 27, 1961, Holy Monday, he died of a sudden heart attack. His remains were laid in state in his native Ermita Church where Rufino Cardinal Santos sang the Requiem mass. The next day, the body was transferred to San Fernando with the Pampango clergy coming in full force. After a morning pontifical requiem Mass in the Cathedral of San Fernando, Pampanga, the Kapampangans begged to defer the funeral in the afternoon so that more people could pay their last respects to the bishop who left all that he had for the two seminaries in Pangasinan and Pampanga, and for the Carmelite convent in Angeles.
Bishop Cesar Ma. Guerrero was interred, together with the bones of his mother Aurora, at the Carmelite Monastery grounds in Angeles, aged 76. In the words of an old Franciscan priest, the good bishop died pursuing both sanctity and wisdom, essential qualities of Christ’s priesthood-“Es sabio y santo!”.
