CARDINAL Luis Antonio Tagle bid goodbye to his hometown of Imus, Cavite, with a Mass last Monday at the Our Lady of the Pillar cathedral, where he was baptized in 1957, ordained priest in 1982, and ordained bishop in 2001.
In his usual humble self, he said he was now one of the nation’s Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) as he assumes his new position as prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in the Vatican, one of the biggest in the Roman Curia.
This congregation was established nearly 400 years ago, in 1622, by Pope Gregory XV with the task of “transmission and dissemination of the faith throughout the whole world.”
It coordinates and guides the Church’s missionary work. Administratively, it oversees the work of most of the dioceses in Asia, Africa, and Oceania, in which are found one-third of the Church’s 4,000 dioceses. The Pope’s appointment of Cardinal Tagle is said to be an expression of his outreach to Asia, where two-thirds of the world’s population live today.
Pope Francis has long been known for his worldwide outlook. “Evangelization,” he once said, “takes place in obedience to the missionary mandate of Jesus: ‘Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’.” It is this global outlook which makes him appeal to the world’s leaders for immigrants seeking to escape war and violence in their own lands and seek a new life in other countries.
It is said Cardinal Tagle shares the Pope’s vision of a missionary church and his concern for the poor. Since 2015, Cardinal Tagle has been president of Caritas International, a confederation of 165 Catholic relief, development, and social service organizations operating in over 200 countries and territories. He is said to have impressed bishops around the world, so that in three successive synods, he was elected to the synod council.
But while he is today recognized as a leader among the bishops of the Church around the world, Cardinal Tagle feels his oneness with the people of his native country, so that he described himself as now an Overseas Filipino Worker, an OFW, one of the millions of Filipinos now working in all counties around the planet.
He will be leading one of the major organizations of the Vatican, but he will remain at heart a Filipino ever concerned about our country and our people.
