Bishop Héctor Javier Pizarro Acevedo

Monsignor Héctor Javier Pizarro Acevedo, O.A.R. (Order of Augustinian Recollects), was born on January 11, 1951, in Medellín (Antioquia). He completed his primary education in his hometown and his secondary education at the Augustinian Recollect Minor Seminary in La Linda, Manizales, which he entered in 1963. He made his simple profession in 1970 and his solemn profession in 1973. That same year, he began studying philosophy at San Buenaventura University in Bogotá; subsequently, in 1973, he began theology studies at Javeriana University, continuing them in 1975 at the Major Seminary of Bogotá and, in 1976, at the Augustinian Recollect theologate in Marcilla, Spain. While in Spain, he attended advanced theological courses at María Cristina University in El Escorial (Madrid) and at the University of Navarra. He obtained a Licentiate in Theology from Javeriana University in 1992. He was ordained a priest on January 8, 1977, by the then-Bishop of Zipaquirá, Msgr. Rubén Buitrago. His first assignment was as pastor of the Immaculate Conception Parish and as a teacher at the Augustinian School in Bucaramanga; he subsequently served as parochial vicar in Yopal (1978), master of postulants at the La Linda Seminary in Manizales (1978–1981), sub-prior at the Suba-Bogotá theologate (1981–1985), prior and novice master at the Desierto de la Candelaria Convent during two separate terms (1985–1989 and 1993–1995), second councilor and provincial secretary (1989–1993), student of Biblical Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome (1995–1997), and second provincial councilor and master of professed theologians at the Suba Convent (1997–2000). On October 23, 2000, His Holiness John Paul II appointed him Apostolic Vicar of Trinidad and Titular Bishop of Ceramus. He received episcopal ordination on January 27, 2001, and took office in the Vicariate on February 11, 2001.