Bishop of Plasencia
Ernesto Jesús Brotóns Tena is Bishop of Plasencia, Spain. Ernesto Jesús Brotóns Tena was born in Zaragoza on 20 February 1968. His vocation was forged and grew in the parish of San Lorenzo Mártir in Zaragoza. After completing EGB with the Marianists, he entered the minor seminary at the age of 14. Formed in the major seminary of Zaragoza, he completed ecclesiastical studies at the Regional Center for Theological Studies of Aragón, CRETA, from 1986 to 1992. After the pastoral stage in La Almunia de Doña Godina, Zaragoza, he was ordained a priest on 2 October 1993. His first pastoral assignment was in the rural world, in the Campo Romanos region of Zaragoza, as parish administrator in 1993 and parish priest in 1994 of Cerveruela, Torralbilla, Langa del Castillo, Mainar, Villarreal de Huerva, Romanos, Lechón, Anento, and Fombuena. In 1997 he was sent to study dogmatic theology at the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical University of Salamanca, where he obtained a licentiate in 1999 and a doctorate in theology in 2002, with a thesis titled Felicidad y Trinidad a la luz del De Trinitate de san Agustín. During his time in Salamanca he collaborated pastorally as chaplain of the university residence run by the Sisters of Charity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Since his return to Zaragoza in 2002, he has exercised various pastoral services, among others: assistant chaplain, from 2002 to 2004, and chaplain of youth pastoral ministry, from 2004 to 2008; parish priest of El Buen Pastor, from 2003 to 2017; chaplain of the canonical foundation El Buen Pastor, from 2008 to 2017, and professor of the diocesan school governed by it, from 2004 to 2017; archpriest of the Torrero-La Paz archpresbyterate, from 2015 to 2017, and parish collaborator of La Presentación de la Virgen, from 2017 to 2022. He has been a member of the Presbyteral Council, from 2011 to 2022; the College of Consultors, from 2016 to 2022; and the Diocesan Pastoral Council, from 2004 to 2008 and from 2011 to 2022. In the properly academic sphere, since 2002 he has been professor of philosophy of religion and of various subjects of systematic theology at CRETA, from 2002 to 2022, and at the ISCR Nuestra Señora del Pilar, from 2016 to 2022. He was deputy director of CRETA from 2009 to 2011 and director from 2011 to 2022, also directing the cited institute from 2017. Convinced of the pastoral significance of theology, this pastoral concern is always present in his theological reflection. This is reflected in his articles and, in addition to the publication of his thesis, in works such as Dios y la felicidad. Historia y teología de una relación, Salamanca, 2013. Ernesto Jesús Brotóns Tena was appointed Bishop of Plasencia on 16 July 2022 and took possession of the Extremaduran diocese on 15 October 2022. In the CEE, he has been a member of the Episcopal Commission for Social Pastoral Ministry and Human Promotion since the plenary assembly of November 2022.