Roberto Calara Mallari

Roberto Calara Mallari was born on March 27, 1958, in Masantol, Pampanga. After attending San Carlos Seminary in Makati City, he earned a master's degree in spirituality from the Priests School for Asia in Tagaytay City and completed his studies at the School for Priests in Florence, Italy. He was ordained a priest on November 27, 1982, for the Archdiocese of San Fernando. His early posts, per the Holy See bulletin, were parochial vicar of San Vicente Ferrer in San Fernando (1982-1983), spiritual director of the Mother of Good Counsel Minor Seminary in San Fernando (1983-1987), parish priest of Immaculate Conception in Las Pinas (1987-1989), director of the Commission on Family and Life of SACOP in Pampanga (1994-1997), parish priest of Lord's Ascension in San Fernando (1998-2006), and executive secretary of the Episcopal Commission on the Family (2000-2006).

On January 14, 2006, he was appointed titular bishop of Erdonia and auxiliary bishop of San Fernando, receiving episcopal ordination on March 27, 2006. On May 15, 2012, he was appointed Bishop of San Jose in Nueva Ecija, succeeding Mylo Hubert Vergara, who had been appointed Bishop of Pasig in 2011; he was installed on July 10, 2012. The installation day rests on Wikipedia alone: the contemporary record corroborates only July 2012. On December 29, 2024, Pope Francis appointed him Bishop of Tarlac, transferring him from San Jose. He was installed on March 27, 2025, at San Sebastian Cathedral in Tarlac City, with Apostolic Nuncio Charles Brown presiding; the day was his 67th birthday and the 19th anniversary of his episcopal ordination. He is the fourth Bishop of Tarlac, succeeding Enrique Macaraeg, who died in October 2023, after a 17-month sede vacante. His San Jose tenure overlaps the Traditionis custodes window from 2021 to 2024, but no act of his own concerning the 1962 Missal surfaced for those years; his San Jose items in the record (the 2017 condemnation of the killing of Fr. Marcelito Paez, a 2018 organic farming initiative, and a 2019 statement on child labor) all predate the window.

In Tarlac, after his installation he held the clergy assignments in place for one additional year, then announced a major reassignment at the Chrism Mass on April 2, 2026, effective June 1, 2026, ending the freeze that had held since Macaraeg's death. The diocese at that point comprised 8 vicariates, 8 shrines, 60 parishes, and 5 pastoral stations. On October 4, 2026, a first-class relic of St. Carlo Acutis was enshrined at San Sebastian Cathedral, received by Mallari and Fr. Nico De Leon from the Santuario della Spogliazione in Assisi, with authentication dated March 23, 2026.