On 7 February 2023, the Holy Father Francis appointed Br. Emilio Rocha Grande, OFM, Apostolic Administrator of Tangier (Morocco) since 25 February 2022, Archbishop of the same see.
Emilio Rocha Grande, OFM (Madrid 1958), a friar a friar of the Province of the Immaculate Conception in Spain, entered the Province of St. Gregory the Great in the Philippines in 1975, made his first profession in Arenas de San Pedro (Avila) on the 17th September 1978 and his solemn profession in Avila on the 18th September 1982. After qualifying as a primary school teacher (1980-1983) and completing his ecclesiastical studies at the Pontifical Athenaeum Antonianum (Rome) (1985-1990), he was ordained priest in the church of San Juan de los Reyes (Toledo) on 16 February 1991. He has a diploma in theology of religious life and another in vocational formation; he has a bachelor's degree in philosophy and a licentiate in ecclesiastical studies. He speaks Spanish, Italian and understands French; in the Order he has been a teacher, master of postulants and later of temporary professed (2000-2003 and 2011-2015), guardian (1997-2000 and 2006-2011); provincial definitor (2000-2010. 2013-2015 and 2017-2020), vicar provincial (2010-2013) and visitator general of the Province of Cartagena (Murcia) in 2011 and of Santiago de Compostela, in 2018. He has given numerous retreats and spirituality courses.
The see he will administer, canonically erected by Pope Sixtus IV in 1472 after the conquest of Tangier by the armies of King Alfonso V of Portugal - although the see of Tingis is documented from the beginning of the 4th century in the Roman province of Mauretania Tingitana - was suppressed in favour of Ceuta in 1675. Such was its decline that neither the apostolic prefecture entrusted in 1630 to the Andalusian Franciscans of the Province of San Diego de Alcalá, nor the apostolic vicariate of 1693 could maintain the Catholic mission of Morocco, watered with the blood of our protomartyrs. Until, in 1859, five new Spanish Franciscan missionaries managed to revive and consolidate it. Thus, on 14 April 1908, Pius X elevated the apostolic prefecture to a vicariate with episcopal dignity, assigning it the Roman title Tingis, and Pius XII elevated the vicariate to the rank of archdiocese, taking its present name on 14 November 1956, a few months after the departure of Spain and France from those territories.
The Archdiocese of Tangier today extends its jurisdiction over the Catholic faithful of the Latin rite residing in the northern sector of the former Spanish protectorate (1912-1954), that is to say: the region of Tangier-Tetouan-Al Hoceima and the province of Nador, in the Eastern region, known as the international zone of Morocco. According to the Pontifical Yearbook of the year 2020, of its 4,463,500 inhabitants, only 3,000 were Catholics (0.1%), plus 80 foreign religious: 63 women and 17 men, served by 12 Franciscan priests in 7 parishes, which explains why the prefects and vicars apostolic, as well as its archbishops, have been of our Order. It should be remembered that Cardinal Carlos Amigo Vallejo, OFM, arrived at the See of Seville after governing the Archdiocese of Tangiers (1973-1982).