MANILA (UCAN): Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, the archbishop of Manila, the Philippines, was appointed the new prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples by Pope Francis the Vatican announced on December 8. He is now one of only nine members of the powerful Roman Curia.
The 62-year-old Philippine cardinal is only the second Asian to lead the congregation, popularly known by its old name of Propaganda Fide, which is responsible for evangelisation and the nomination of Catholic bishops in Asia, Africa and Oceania.
He succeeds Fernando Cardinal Filoni, who has been appointed grand master of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.
For the past four years, Cardinal Tagle has been chairperson of the Episcopal Commission for the Pontificio Collegio Filippino of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines a college for diocesan priests from the Philippines studying at pontifical universities in Rome.
The Collegio Filippino and the Friends of the Collegio worldwide thanked Pope Francis for the appointment.
“In this Advent Season, as we await the coming of Baby Jesus, we pray through the intercession of Mama Mary and St. Joseph that God continues to shower our dear Pope Francis and Cardinal Tagle with his heavenly blessings in this appointment and transfer to the Vatican,” the groups said in a statement.
The cardinal, who was born on 21 June 1957, was ordained to the priesthood in 1982 after studying philosophy and theology at Ateneo De Manila University’s San Jose Major Seminary.
He later studied in the United States, where he obtained his doctorate in theology with a thesis on the evolution of the notion of episcopal collegiality since the Second Vatican Council.
In 1997, he joined the International Theological Commission in Rome.
As we celebrate the 500 years of Christianity in the Philippines. The Chaplaincy to Filipino Migrants organises an on-line talk every Tuesday at 9.00pm. You can join us at:
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At the age of 44, he was named bishop of the Diocese of Imus in the Philippines by Pope St. John Paul II in October 2001, then in 2011, he was appointed metropolitan archbishop of Manila by Pope Benedict XVI.
In November 2012, during the last consistory of the pontificate of Pope Benedict, he received a cardinal’s red hat.
Cardinal Tagle is president of Caritas Internationalis and the Catholic Biblical Federation.
He participated in the 1998, 2005, 2008 and 2012 synods at the Vatican. In 2014, he was one of the three presidents of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family.
He is the second Filipino to become prefect of a dicastery following the late Jose Tomas Cardinal Sanchez, who was prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy from 1991 until 1996.
He is only the second Asian to head the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, the other being diplomat, Ivan Cardinal Dias of India, who headed the dicastery from 2006 to 2011.
