Fr. Rico Ponce, OCarm, Ph.D.

Mentor

Fr. Rico Ponce is currently the Executive director and Academic Director of the Institute of Spirituality in Asia.ISA serves the Dioceses and Parishes, Formation Houses and Seminaries, Religious Congregations and Societies, Schools and Church-based programs and ministries in the academic and practical formation of Transformed Servant-Leaders through Organization Development and Transformative Spirituality.

Among the other involvements that Fr. Rico was engaged in included: being a pastoral worker of the Basic Christian Community-Community Organizing (BCC-CO) where he organized and facilitated seminars and lectures on parish management (1991- 1992). As a member of the Ecumenical Forum for Contextualized Formation (EFCF), Fr. Rico also participated in fora and lectures on contextualized formation to religious life (1993- 1997). After he was ordained a priest in 1998, he became the Rector of the Carmelite Seminary and Assistant Pastor in Our Lady Of Mount Carmel Parish in Escalante City. He also organized activities for the total human development of the Carmelite seminarians, gave lectures on Carmelite Spirituality and Church history, performed sacramental and pastoral work in the Parish (1998- 2000). He was appointed a member of the Directing Team of the Center of Spirituality Manila (CSM) in 2002- 2005. After his graduate studies in the Netherlands, he was assigned Rector of the Carmelite student friars from 2006-2011.

Fr. Rico received his PhD in Empirical Theology at Radboud University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands in 2006, his MA in Pastoral Ministry from the Inter-Congregational Theological Center (ICTC) of Our Lady of the Angels Seminary (OLAS) Quezon City, Philippines in 1997, and his Bachelor of Arts (AB) Sociology in 1990 from Mount Carmel College, Escalante City, Negros Occidental.