Luis Antonio Tagle

Early life and studies

Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle was born on June 21, 1957, in Manila, the eldest child of Manuel Tagle Sr. and his Chinese Filipino wife, Milagros Gokim, who previously worked for Equitable Bank. Tagle's paternal grandfather, Florencio, came from Imus, Cavite; the Tagle family were from the Spanish, lowland Christian aristocracy known as the Principalía, which were the elite prior to the 1896 Philippine Revolution. Florencio was injured by a bomb explosion during the Second World War; Tagle's grandmother made a living by running a local diner. The Tagle surname is originally Spanish, from the northern region of Cantabria) and some members spread to the Philippines via Mexico.

After completing elementary and high school at Saint Andrew's School in Parañaque in 1973, Tagle was influenced by priest friends to enter the Jesuit San José Seminary, which sent him to the Ateneo de Manila University, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in pre-divinity from the Ateneo in 1977 and then a master of arts in theology at the same university's Loyola School of Theology. Tagle earned his doctorate in sacred theology at the Catholic University of America from 1987 to 1991. He wrote his dissertation under the direction of Joseph A. Komonchak on "Episcopal Collegiality in the Teaching and Practice of Paul VI". Tagle also attended doctrinal courses at the Institute of Pope Paul VI University. In Komonchak's estimation, Tagle was "one of the best students I had in over 40 years of teaching" and "could have become the best theologian in the Philippines, or even in all of Asia" had he not been appointed bishop. Tagle has received honorary degrees from Catholic Theological Union and La Salle University. Tagle is a native Tagalog speaker and is fluent in English and Italian. He is also proficient in reading Spanish, French, Korean, Chinese, and Latin.

Early priesthood

Tagle was ordained in the Diocese of Imus on February 27, 1982. After ordination, he held the following positions: associate pastor of San Agustín Parish – Méndez-Núñez, Cavite (1982–1984), spiritual director (1982–1983) and later rector (1983–1985) of the diocesan seminary of Imus, the Tahanan ng Mabuting Pastol. After studies in the United States from 1985 to 1992, he returned to Imus and was episcopal vicar for religious (1993–1995) and parish priest and rector (1998–2001) of Nuestra Señora del Pilar Cathedral-Parish. He also taught theology at San Carlos Seminary (1982–1985) and Divine Word Seminary in Tagaytay.

Pope John Paul II appointed Tagle to the International Theological Commission, where he served from 1997 to 2002 under its president, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. From 1995 to 2001, he was a member of the editorial board of the "History of Vatican II" project.

Bishop of Imus

On October 22, 2001, Pope John Paul II appointed Tagle bishop of Imus, where he had been serving as parish priest of the cathedral parish since 1998. He received his episcopal consecration on December 12. During his ten years in Imus, he made a point of living simply, owned no car, and invited the destitute to join him for a meal. At the first gathering of bishops under Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, the general assembly of the Synod of Bishops, he spoke from the floor about the inadequacy of the number of priests in the Philippines. He said:To respond to the hunger for the Eucharist, priests say many Masses, accept multiple intentions and send lay ministers for the service of the Word with Communion.... The Faithful know the difference between a bible service and Eucharist, a priest and a lay minister. Many communities wait for the gift of the priesthood and the Eucharist with humility.

To the concept that priestly vocation is a gift from God, he countered: "we should also ask whether the Church is a good steward of the gift." He told a news conference that "The first Sunday after my ordination as a priest, I said nine Masses, and that is regular in the Philippines." Discussing priestly celibacy, Cardinal Angelo Scola, the synod moderator, expressed reservations about modifications to the church's requirement of celibacy for the priesthood. In response, Tagle suggested that the church should consider such a change to combat the shortage of priests.

At the 2008 International Eucharistic Congress in Quebec, Canada, he delivered a talk on the importance of the Eucharist that, by one report, moved the audience to tears. He contrasted Christian worship with false forms of adoration:

It is sad that those who worship idols sacrifice other people while preserving themselves and their interests. How many factory workers are being denied the right wages for the god of profit? How many women are being sacrificed to the god of domination? How many children are being sacrificed to the god of lust? How many trees, rivers, hills are being sacrificed to the god of "progress"? How many poor people are being sacrificed to the god of greed? How many defenseless people are being sacrificed to the god of national security?

Archbishop of Manila

Pope Benedict XVI appointed Tagle the 32nd archbishop of Manila on October 13, 2011, to succeed Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales. According to Catalino Arévalo, the first Asian member of the Vatican's International Theological Commission, Tagle's appointment was promoted by the papal nuncio to the Philippines, Edward Joseph Adams, and by Rosales, but some objections were submitted to the Congregation for Bishops, which caused some delay in processing his appointment. Prior to his installation, Tagle made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in October 2011. Tagle was installed as archbishop on December 12, 2011, the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the tenth anniversary of his episcopal consecration. He received the pallium, the symbol of his authority as a metropolitan archbishop, from Benedict XVI on June 29, 2012, in Rome.

In February 2012, Tagle attended the Symposium for Healing and Renewal at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Tagle discussed the way the sex-abuse crisis manifests itself in Asia, where it is more common for priests to violate their vows of celibacy by taking mistresses than to engage in the sexual abuse of minors. Tagle maintained that the deference to authority typical of Asian culture combined with the dominance of the Catholic Church in a country like the Philippines produced a "culture of shame" that continued to inhibit the reporting of instances of abuse. He said that culture needed to change though he anticipated great difficulties:

The relative silence with which the victims and Asian Catholics face the scandal is partly due to the culture of "shame" that holds dearly one's humanity, honor, and dignity. For Asian cultures, a person's shame tarnishes one's family, clan, and community. Silence could be a way of preserving what is left of one's honor.

Tagle said the fact his country had a "touching culture" that created problems of interpretation and mandatory reporting laws would face cultural hurdles as well.

On June 12, 2012, Tagle was appointed a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education for a five-year renewable term. That same day, Tagle spoke at the 50th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, Ireland. He discussed how the sexual abuse crisis requires the Catholic Church to reevaluate its relationship with the media. He said: "As we challenge them to be fair and truthful in whatever they are reporting, the Church should also be prepared to be scrutinised by media, provided the norms of fairness and truthfulness are applied to all, especially the victims." He decried the tendency of church officials to resent negative media coverage even when accurate, while noting he had witnessed some media coverage in Asia that is tainted by "an anti-Christian sentiment." He also mentioned the various issues which distinguish the experience of the church in Ireland and similar cases in Asia.

Cardinal

Pope Benedict XVI announced he was elevating Archbishop Tagle to the College of Cardinals on October 24, 2012. Tagle himself had been notified the night before. At that consistory, he was assigned the titular church of San Felice da Cantalice a Centocelle. Tagle was the seventh Filipino to be made a cardinal of the Catholic Church. When he became a cardinal he was the second youngest one. On December 1, 2012, upon his return to the Philippines, he presided at a thanksgiving Mass at the San Fernando de Dilao Church in Paco, Manila, which President Benigno Aquino III, Vice-president Jejomar Binay, and Mayor Alfredo Lim of Manila attended.

On January 31, 2013, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Tagle to serve as a member of the Presidential Committee of the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerants. Tagle was mentioned by some news organizations as a possible candidate for election as pope during the papal conclave that elected Pope Francis in 2013. Tagle led the National Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary at the San Fernando de Dilao Church on June 8, 2013.

In response to the call of the Synod of New evangelization in 2012, Tagle founded the Philippine Conference on New Evangelization in 2013, and has been held annually ever since.

Following the publication of Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato si', Tagle launched a campaign in the Philippines to collect signatures for a petition against anthropogenic global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions. As the Synod on the Family opened public discussion of allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive communion, Tagle said he was open to hearing arguments on the question. He said: "We have a principle we have to believe in. But the openness comes on pastoral judgments you have to make in concrete situations, because no two cases are alike."

As the 2014 session of the synod approached, Tagle said he hoped that "the pastoral care of divorced and civilly remarried couples is debated openly and with good will," but emphasized other challenges drawn from his Philippine experience, especially the separation of married couples from one another and their children caused by poverty and migration. After the synod, he said:

Roman Curia

Tagle has been appointed by popes to serve as member of various discasteries in the Roman Curia:

Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life (since 2013/2014)

Dicastery for Culture and Education (since 2013)

Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (since 2014)

Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue (since 2020)

Dicastery for Legislative Texts (since 2020)

Commission of Cardinals for the Supervision of the Institute for the Works of Religion (since 2020)

Dicastery for the Eastern Churches (since 2021)

Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (since 2021)

Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (since 2022)

Council for the Section for Relations with States and International Organizations of the Secretariat of State (Holy See)

Dicastery for Communication (since 2026)

He also participated in eight assemblies of the Synod of Bishops in the Catholic Church, namely:

Special Assembly for Asia (1998)

XI General Assembly (Eucharist) (2005)

XII General Assembly (Word of God) (2008)

Notable views

Tagle favors allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion on a case-by-case basis, has expressed inclusion for gay Catholics, and supports the 2018 Vatican–China agreement, which allows the pope to appoint and veto bishops approved by the Chinese Communist Party. Tagle advocates for the protection of immigrants and has criticized the preferential treatment of Christians in refugee resettlement programs within Western nations, arguing that it amounts to discrimination.

Inclusivity

In a March 2015 interview, he said the Catholic Church needed to develop a new language for addressing gay people, unwed mothers, and divorced and remarried Catholics because "what constituted in the past an acceptable way of showing mercy" changes and needs to be re-imagined. Tagle said:

[T]he harsh words that were used in the past to refer to gays and divorced and separated people, the unwed mothers etc., in the past they were quite severe. Many people who belonged to those groups were branded and that led to their isolation from the wider society. ... But we are glad to see and hear shifts in that. ... [F]or the Catholic Church, there is a pastoral approach which happens in counselling, in the sacrament of reconciliation where individual persons and individual cases are taken uniquely or individually so that a help, a pastoral response, could be given adequately to the person.

In the same interview, Tagle said that "Every situation for those who are divorced and remarried is quite unique. To have a general rule might be counterproductive in the end. ... We cannot give one formula for all." In 2017, Tagle led the Lazarus Project, a social media campaign for Easter which called for greater acceptance of people traditionally judged such as sex workers, the homeless, and LGBTQ people in Catholic churches using the hashtag #ResurrectLove.

Foreign policy

Tagle supports the 2018 Vatican–China agreement, which allows the pope to appoint and veto bishops approved by the Chinese Communist Party, asserting that the Holy See signed the agreement "to safeguard the valid apostolic succession and the sacramental nature of the Catholic Church in China ... and this can reassure, comfort, and enliven baptized Catholics in China."

Migration and immigration

Tagle has advocated for better treatment of migrants, remarking in 2018 to the United Nations:

Migration is about human persons. I have observed that some people who are afraid of migrants or refugees have had very little personal encounter with them. They do not even know the people they fear. By meeting them, touching their wounds, listening to their stories and dreams, we might see ourselves in them. They are not strangers. They could be me, my parents, my brothers and sisters, my friend.

Tagle has denounced the preferential option for Christians in refugee resettlement programs, noting that any policy prioritizing Christians generates animosity and biases between Muslims and Christians.

Interpretation of Vatican II

Tagle served from 1995 to 2001 as one of more than 50 members of the editorial board of the five-volume, 2,500-page History of Vatican II. Completed after discussions at 14 international conferences with contributions from over 100 scholars, it is seen as the seminal work on the Second Vatican Council. Its principal editors, Alberto Melloni and Giuseppe Alberigo, are identified with the Bologna School of ecclesiastical history which views the Second Vatican Council as a "rupture" with the past. Tagle's contribution, written in 1999 when he was not yet a bishop, was a 66-page chapter in the fourth volume of the History called "A November Storm: The 'Black Week'" which covered the final days of the council's third session in 1964, when several actions by Pope Paul VI caused alarm among reform forces.

Tagle's work has been criticized from opposite viewpoints. In 2005, Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerants, a "continuity" advocate, assessed Tagle's chapter as "a rich and even comprehensive study", but called it "unbalanced, journalistic, and lacking objectivity expected of a true historian". Hans Küng, a principal critic of Pope Paul's conservative impact on the council, endorsed Tagle's view that the Roman Curia's influence on the pope forced the Council documents to make "theological compromises", but said Tagle was unable to develop an explanation or justification for Pope Paul's positions, so that "in the closing section his writing degenerates into sanctimoniousness".

John L. Allen Jr., a Vaticanologist, reported that Cardinal Marc Ouellet (the Holy See's prefect for the Congregation for Bishops and protégé of Pope Benedict XVI) maintains his "full support" for Tagle. Allen also reported that a Vatican official indicated that he read Tagle's 1999 essay—after media reports highlighted it—and found nothing objectionable. In fact, he was impressed by Tagle's defense of Paul VI in that Tagle wrote that Paul followed a strategy of "listening to all views, especially opposing ones", and was willing to "sacrifice his personal popularity to save the council and its future". This official also said that it is difficult to suggest Tagle is opposed to Pope Benedict's reading of the council since one of the sources Tagle cited was the writings of Joseph Ratzinger. The Vatican news analyst Sandro Magister reported that Tagle's identification with the Bologna School would have hurt his chances of becoming a bishop had the members of the Congregation for Bishops – who considered Tagle's candidacy for archbishop – known of it when considering his appointment.

Media

Since after becoming Bishop of Imus, later as archbishop of Manila, and further as a Vatican pro-prefect, Tagle continues to host The Word Exposed and The Faith Exposed, both Catholic television programs produced by the Jesuit Communications Foundation, which also maintains official social media accounts for him. He is also the Tuesday presenter of Kape't Pandasal ("Coffee and Prayer", a pun on the Filipino term kape't pandesal or "coffee and salted bread"), an early morning religious inspirational program partly produced by the same media arm, broadcast on TV Maria, DepEd ALS, Bilyonaryo News Channel, and previously on ABS-CBN, and now streaming in YouTube.

Coat of arms

Cardinal Tagle's episcopal motto remains Dominus Est ("It is the Lord!"), drawn from the Gospel of John 21:7. The updated coat of arms of Tagle retains all the principal elements previously found on the sinister side of his arms during his tenure as archbishop of Manila. Following his transition to new ecclesiastical responsibilities, the arms of the Archdiocese are no longer depicted. The new version of the coat of arms adopts a different marshalling (division) to ensure to a heraldically correct arrangement of elements. The coat of arms is parted tierced (in three parts) per pall reversed. In the dexter (heraldic right) field, which is rendered in gold (Or), there is an open Bible bearing the Greek letters Alpha (Α) and Omega (Ω) in black (Sable). Beside the Bible is the image of the Good Shepherd, shown in natural colors (Proper), carrying a sheep upon his shoulders and holding a wooden staff in his right hand. A fishing net is suspended from the shepherd's right arm, extending downward, with five fish entangled within it.

The sinister (heraldic left) field, colored blue (Azure), features a Corinthian column rising from the base. The column is topped with the crowned monogram of the Blessed Virgin Mary, depicted in white (Argent) and encircled by twelve golden stars. This imagery alludes to Our Lady of the Pillar, the patroness of Tagle's home parish and diocese. In contrast to his previous coat of arms, which featured an Ionic column, the updated version uses a Corinthian style, matching the column found at Piazza di Spagna in Rome, near the offices of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, where Tagle serves as prefect. The base of the shield, colored green (Vert), bears a gold (Or) carpenter's square superimposed upon two white (Argent) lilies with stalks and leaves, symbolizing purity and Saint Joseph, the carpenter. Behind the shield is an archiepiscopal cross, and above both is a red (Gules) galero, or ecclesiastical hat, with fifteen red tassels suspended on each side, arranged in rows of one, two, three, four, and five.

The coat of arms is blasoned as follows: Tierced per pall reversed Or, Azure and Vert. In dexter side, arranged in fess, an open Bible inscribed with the Greek letters Α and Ω Sable, and an image of the Good Shepherd Proper carrying a sheep upon his shoulders and holding a wooden staff Proper in his dexter hand, a net Sable, sinister chief point suspended from the dexter arm of the Good Shepherd and the dexter fesse point to the base, five fishes Sable entangled in the net. Issuing out of the base of sinister side, a Corinthian Pillar Or surmounted by the monogram of the Blessed Virgin Mary Argent, crowned and encircled by twelve stars, all of the first. In base, a Carpenter's square Or superimposed on two lilies stalked and leaved, all of the fifth. Behind the shield is an archepiscopal cross. Both are surmounted by a galero with fifteen tassels pendant from both sides in 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, all Gules.

Distinctions

Orders

Holy See: Order of the Holy Sepulchre

France: Officer of the Order of the Legion of Honour (2024)

Academic

Far Eastern University: doctor of humane letters honoris causa (April 2002)

San Beda College: doctor of humane letters honoris causa (March 30, 2012)

De La Salle University – Dasmariñas: doctor of humane letters honoris causa (June 19, 2013)

Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan: doctor of humane letters honoris causa (August 1, 2013)

University of Santo Tomas: doctor of humane letters honoris causa (August 13, 2013)

Holy Angel University: doctor of humane letters honoris causa (August 16, 2013)

Fordham University: doctor of humane letters honoris causa (March 28, 2014)

Australian Catholic University: doctor of humane letters honoris causa (May 17, 2014)

The Catholic University of America: doctor of theology honoris causa (May 17, 2014)

Catholic Theological Union: doctor of theology honoris causa (May 14, 2015)

La Salle University: doctor of humane letters honoris causa (September 18, 2015)

Ateneo de Manila University: doctor of philosophy honoris causa (June 21, 2024)

Awards

Outstanding Manilan 2013

Fides Award 2015

Brother Teliow Fackeldey, FSC Presidential Medal Award for Outstanding Integrity, Merit and Public Service 2015

Ford Family Notre Dame Award for Human Development and Solidarity 2017

Rotary Peace Award 2018

Father Hecker Award for Excellence in Evangelization 2020

Catholic Faith Network Religious Leader Award 2024