At 67, Cardinal Tagle has become a key figure within the Vatican apparatus: he currently occupies the position of Pro-prefect of Dicastery for Evangelizationwhich places it in a direct influence position On the future of the Church in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In fact, he was appointed by Pope Francis himself, who since the beginning of his pontificate sought to “decentralize” the Roman power.
Son of a Filipino of Chinese origin and a Mother Filipina, Tagle grew up in a Catholic home in the town of Imus, Cavite, where he developed a nearby pastoral style, almost familiar. Ordered priest in 1982, he studied at the Catholic University of America and then at the Gregorian University of Rome.
Subsequently, his doctoral thesis addressed episcopal collegiality in the Second Vatican Council, an issue that, over time, became central to the ecclesial debates promoted by Francisco. In 2001 he was appointed Bishop of Imus, and ten years later it was Chosen Archbishop of Manila For Benedict XVI.
His style stands out for being humble and smiling, with a greater closeness to the people: Masses on the street, spontaneous visits to hospitals, and open dialogues with young people.
The “Pope Francis of Asia”
With his perpetual smile, his dominance of Italian, English and Tagalo, and his theology anchored in the Second Vatican Council, Tagle has been nicknamed on more than one occasion as “Pope Francis of Asia”. The Filipino shares – as Francisco did – a pastoral vision of the Church, prioritizing personal encounter, active listening and mercy as axes of the Christian announcement.
On the other hand, he is no stranger to the media, since he has participated in numerous television programs in the Philippines, which made him a media figure. On many occasions he has referred to Suffering of Philippine migrants, hunger and clerical abuse.
Since Jorge Bergoglio was chosen in 2013, the ecclesiastical power map has been transformed, and Tagle is part of that new geography. In 2015 he was appointed president of Caritas Internationalis, a role that led him to tour the world and Understand global emergencies in their own flesh: poverty, climate crisis, wars and displacements.
The next Pope?
In the last decade, its name has been circulating with discretion but persistence in each prevuncio of conclave. In his favor JHe has his international profile, his affinity with Francisco, his curial and pastoral experienceand its roots in the Asian continent, where Catholicism grows by leaps and bounds. Against him: Being too young for some conservative sectors of the Cardinal College, and too identified with the reformist style of the current Pontiff.
In this sense, Tagle represents a possible continuity of the legacy left by Bergoglio, where many cardinals could see it as a bridge between the European Church and the emerging church of the Global South, where Catholicism grows vigorously. In Asia, where less than 12% of the population is Christian, Tagle’s figure also becomes strategic For interreligious dialogue, especially with Islam and Buddhism.
If chosen, it would be something historical, since never in the almost 2000 years of the papacy there was a pontiff of that continent. To know, it only remains to expect the cardinals to be locked under the dome of the Sistine Chapel, and that the characteristic white smoke appears, where the decision will finally be revealed.
Source: Ambito
