THE FIRST PASTORS
OF THE
PARISH OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
FR. PEDRO DE LEDESMA (+1625) The First Parish Priest
The first pastor of Mangaldan, Fr. Pedro de Ledesma embarked from Mexico with a group of 7 Dominicans on March 23m 1596; he arrived in the Philippines four months later. Prior to his coming to the Philippines, he served in the Dominican missions of Guatemala. A venerable man of sweet and affable character, he won the confidence of Fr. Miguel de Benavides who entrusted into his care his co-missionaries in the Islands when the latter, after having been elected Bishop of Nueva Segovia, could not immediately come to the Philippines because of his position then as Procurator of the Order at the Royal Court in Madrid.
Aside from being the first vicar of Mangaldan, Fr. Ledesma discharged the function of a Definador (one who participates in the deliberations of Provincial Chapter who has an active voice and exercise the right of suffrage) in three Dominican Provincial Chapters and was elected twice as the Vicar Provincial of Manila. He died at the Santo Domingo Convent in Manila in 1625.
(Mangaldan:1600-1898. Rev. Fr. Rafael S. Magno, Jr. Maramba Press. Dagupan City. 1981. pp 27-28)
FR. TOMAS CASTELLAR (+1607) The First Assistant Priest to the Pastor
Fr. Tomas Castellar on the other hand, the first assistant pastor of Mangaldan was born in Puigcerda, Spain and professed his religious vows in the Dominican Convent of Barcelona. Before his assignement to the Philippines he served as a missionary in the capacity of a professor in the Mexican Province of Santiago; he was a Lector in Sacred Theology. Upon his arrival in the Philippines in 1589, he was assigned to stay at the Dominican Convent in Manila. He was a Definidor in the Dominican Provincial Chapter of 1592. Serving as a missionary in Pangasinan, he was assigned to Binalatongan where he composed a grammar and a vocabulary do the Pangasinan language, Arte Y Vocabulario de la lengua Pangasinan. Later, he worked in Cagayan but did not stay long in that province. In 1596, we find him in the Dominican House in Bolinao but was recalled from his assignment there in 1600 when he became the assistant pastor of Mangaldan. A holy and ingenious man of no mean ability, he died in Manaoag in 1607.
(Mangaldan:1600-1898. Rev. Fr. Rafael S. Magno, Jr. Maramba Press. Dagupan City. 1981. pp 28)
