Chance Meetings

I never imagined that this priest who said mass at the Paules Church at San Marcelino would become the Bishop of the Surabaya Diocese. Fr. Vincent sported a colorful batik shirt after mass. He stayed at the Marian Center during the 1990s and at first I thought he was another Vincentian priest.

There was an occasion when Fr. Rolando de la Goza C.M., president of Adamson University then, asked Fr. Vincent to hear confessions of my students in industrial engineering. He told me that he was from Indonesia which explained the batik and was studying for his masters in psychology at De La Salle University. I told another Indonesian Catholic priest who was in the Philippines about Fr. Vincent. They got in touch and became friends while the latter was in the Philippines.

Pope Benedict XVI appointed Fr. Vincentius Sutikno Wisaksono as Bishop of Surabaya (Indonesia) on April 3, 2007. The diocese of Surabaya had been vacant since the death of Bishop Johannes Sudiarna Hadiwikarta in December 2003. Surabaya is the second largest city in Indonesia with a population of 3 million, 153,000 Catholics and 118 priests.