Reynaldo Bersabal
Reynaldo Bersabal was born October 15, 1964, in Magsaysay, Misamis Oriental, in the Philippines, the youngest of three children, and grew up in a small town in Mindanao where his vocation grew out of the lived faith of his parents and family. He entered the diocesan seminary of San Jose de Mindanao and earned a degree in philosophy from Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro on April 29, 1991, serving there as parish vicar, parish administrator, pastor, chancellor, and director of the Pontifical Mission Societies.
In 1999 he came to California at the invitation of Bishop William Weigand, and he was incardinated into the Diocese of Sacramento in 2004. His Sacramento ministry carried him through parishes in Davis, Sacramento, and Folsom: St. James in Davis, St. Anthony in Sacramento, St. Paul in Sacramento, St. John the Baptist in Folsom, St. James in Davis again, and St. Francis of Assisi in Sacramento from 2022. Since 2012 he has also served as liaison for the diocese's Filipino presbyterate, and he speaks English, Tagalog, Visayan, and Spanish.
Pope Francis appointed him auxiliary bishop of Sacramento on April 20, 2024, and he was consecrated at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament on May 31, 2024, with Bishop Jaime Soto as principal consecrator. As auxiliary bishop he also serves as vicar general of the diocese while remaining pastor of St. Francis of Assisi. Described by Soto as a joyful pastor, he is the fifth Filipino-born bishop named in the United States, and his ministry has remained rooted in parish life and in the immigrant communities that first shaped his own priesthood.
Bishop Bersabal is an auxiliary bishop, not the diocesan ordinary, so the power to authorize, restrict, or relocate celebration of the 1962 Missal in the Diocese of Sacramento belongs to Bishop Jaime Soto, not to him. No statement, decree, permission, or restriction by Bersabal himself concerning the older liturgy was found in the sources searched for this dossier, and none is claimed for him.
The diocesan context is Soto's. At the promulgation of Traditionis custodes the diocese reached out to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter parish to reassure it that no changes were foreseen, and Soto followed up personally with support; the Fraternity's St. Stephen the First Martyr apostolate in Sacramento continued through Bersabal's tenure. A 2026 report of Holy See decrees also lists Sacramento among the dioceses receiving Traditional Latin Mass permissions in 2025, but it does not name the requesting bishop, so it cannot be credited to Bersabal.
Bersabal's own record in the period searched is parish and diocesan administration: vicar general, pastor of St. Francis of Assisi, and liaison for the Filipino presbyterate. Continuation of a predecessor's provision, without a governing act of his own, is no_record under the sprint rules, and that is his posture here.