San Fernando Region – Bishop Alex Aclan 

Alejandro “Alex” Aclan is the second Filipino-American priest to be named bishop in the U.S. The Los Angeles area is home to the largest Filipino immigrant community in the United States.

Aclan was born February 9, 1951, in Pasay, Philippines, the third of eight children born to Geronimo and Emerenciana Aclan. His father had been a pilot in the Philippine Army Air Corps when Japanese forces attacked the Philippines days after the Pearl Harbor attack. 
In the Philippines, his father’s World War II service is considered the stuff of legend. After the war, Geronimo flew as a captain for Philippine Airlines. But Aclan is most thankful to his father for being a living example of a different kind of service.

Aclan said “the first seeds” of his vocation were planted — not by the witness of priests and religious — but by how he saw his parents treat other people.

In 1982, Aclan left the Philippines and moved to Covina, where he was working as a project manager for Union Bank in Los Angeles and attending Sacred Heart Church.  

When he was 35 years old, a fellow parishioner on a retreat asked him: “Have you ever thought of becoming a priest?”

Four years later, In 1988, St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo. Five years later, he was ordained by Cardinal Roger Mahony.

Aclan served as associate pastor at St. Finbar Church in Burbank, and St. John of God Church in Norwalk.  He was made pastor of St. Madeleine Church in Pomona in 2001, where he served for 11 years. In 2011, he was named associate vicar for clergy, and in 2015 became vicar for clergy.

Throughout his 25 years as a priest, Aclan served a variety of other ministries in the Archdiocese. Looking back at the years of priesthood, the bishop-elect said he is still following the example that his parents set while he was growing up.