Bishop of Whitehorse
The Most Rev. Héctor F. Vila, the sixth Bishop of Whitehorse, was born on September 17, 1962, in Lima, Peru. He arrived in Canada with his father, Godofredo Vila Matos, in 1979, He finished high school at Emery Collegiate Institute in 1982. He completed Mechanical Engineering studies at George Brown College in 1986, and worked at Missal Tooling Ltd. as a Mechanical Engineer assistant for a year and a half. At the beginning of 1986, He began to feel the call to the priesthood and in March 1987, started the Neocatechumenal Way in the parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Toronto. In October 1988, he began studies in Philosophy at the University of Toronto, and in September 1989, joined the Redemptoris Mater Missionary Seminary of Rome, Italy. He completed his Philosophy courses and earned a Masters of Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He was ordained to the priesthood on May 14, 1995, by Saint John Paul II. Through additional studies, he also completed his Licentiate in Patristics at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome. He served for two years at St. Irenaeus Parish in Rome as a deacon, and then as an associate pastor for a year and a half. He was then an associate pastor at St. Patrick’s Parish in Rome for another two years. He returned to Canada in October 1998 and served as the Rector of the Redemptoris Mater Missionary Seminary of Toronto for seventeen years. On November 27, 2015, Pope Francis appointed him as the 6th Bishop of Whitehorse, one of Canada’s largest geographical dioceses, spread over a 723,000 sq. km area in Yukon and northern British Columbia. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” - 2 Corinthians 12:9.