Luis Miguel Romero Fernández
Luis Miguel Romero Fernandez was born on June 16, 1954, in Palencia, Spain, and grew up in Andalusia. He entered the Institute of Christ the Redeemer, the Idente Missionaries, in 1972, and studied philosophy and theology at the congregation's international seminary in Tenerife from 1974 to 1980. He also earned degrees in biological sciences at the University of Seville in 1978 and in philosophy and letters at the Autonomous University of Madrid in 1985, and a doctorate in medicine from the University of Zaragoza in 1987. He was ordained a priest in Tenerife on September 11, 1981.
Romero spent more than twenty-five years as a missionary in Latin America, principally in Bolivia and Chile, and served his congregation as provincial superior in Spain, Bolivia, Chile, and India. He directed campus ministry and taught religious sciences at the Catholic University of Bolivia in La Paz, and from 1996 to 2009 he was chancellor and rector-chancellor of the Private Technical University of Loja in Ecuador. In 2007 he was named president of the Inter-American Organization for Higher Education.
In 2014 he became pastor of Our Lady of Loretto Parish in Hempstead, New York, and in December 2019 he was named vicar for Hispanic ministry and evangelization for the Diocese of Rockville Centre. Pope Francis appointed him an auxiliary bishop of Rockville Centre on March 3, 2020, assigning him the titular see of Egara, and he was consecrated at the Cathedral of Saint Agnes in Rockville Centre on June 29, 2020. He continues to serve as an auxiliary bishop under Bishop John Barres, and his episcopal motto is Meek and humble of heart.
No governing act of Bishop Romero's own on the 1962 Missal was found. He has issued no decree, granted no permission, sought no dispensation, and made no appointment sustaining the older form that this research could verify, so his posture is no_record. Liturgical governance for the Diocese of Rockville Centre rests with its ordinary, Bishop John Barres, and Barres's acts are Barres's, not Romero's.
Romero was already an auxiliary bishop when Traditionis custodes was issued on July 16, 2021, so the absence is not explained by a late start: he has served through the whole TC era to date. His public profile in that period is Hispanic ministry and evangelization, university and missionary work, and ordinary auxiliary duties, none of which produced a 1962-Missal act in his name in diocesan news, USCCB releases, or reputable reporting searched for this dossier.
Accordingly no site count is asserted for this tenure, no society is listed, and no decree or dispensation is recorded. The verdict would change only on a verified act of Romero's own - a permission, decree, dispensation request, or sustaining appointment in his name - and none was found after targeted searching, as the research note records.