Why Pope Francis’ Appointment of Cardinal Tagle Is Significant
National Catholic Register, 12 December 2019
The most remarkable thing about Cardinal Tagle’s appointment is that the position was not vacant.
Did Pope Francis just name his successor? Much of the commentary about the appointment of Cardinal Luis Tagle, until now archbishop of Manila, to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples put that question in first or second place. That’s speculation — about which, more later — but the appointment on its own merits is most significant; some have said that Cardinal Tagle is for Pope Francis what Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was for St. John Paul II.
Urgency and Dismissal
The most remarkable thing about Cardinal Tagle’s appointment is that the position was not vacant. Cardinal Fernando Filoni, a widely respected diplomat famous for being the only ambassador not to leave Baghdad during the 2003 Iraq War, is 18 months shy of his 75th birthday and two years shy of completing his second five-year term. Given that Cardinal Tagle is only 62, the retirement of Cardinal Filoni and his replacement by Cardinal Tagle could have taken place in the normal course of events soon enough.
But the Holy Father must have felt a great urgency to get Cardinal Tagle into “Prop,” as the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples is still known in Rome, an abbreviation for its old Latin name, Propaganda Fide.
To make room for Cardinal Tagle, Cardinal Filoni was given the greatest Curial demotion in living memory, from being head of one of the most powerful and wealthy congregations — the prefect has the nickname the “Red Pope” — to a largely ceremonial position as grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. It’s a greater demotion than was meted out to Cardinal Raymond Burke, who did not hold as high an office when he was dispatched for his opposition to the Holy Father’s agenda for the family synods.
It was rumored that when Cardinal Gerhard Müller was dismissed as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he was offered the Holy Sepulchre post. He preferred the freedom to speak his mind in a way that continuing even in a much lesser office would not permit.
Cardinal Filoni’s Offense?
Cardinal Filoni was a rather unadventurous Curialist; he said little outside of formal occasions. It would be hard to know what he would say if he did decide to speak his mind. So it is unlikely that, like Cardinals Burke and Müller, he was fired for seemingly opposing the Holy Father’s agenda.
Yet there were two high-profile dossiers during his tenure, both of which are in shambles.
Most prominent is the secret Vatican-China accord of September 2018, an accord so secret that not even Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, the senior Chinese cardinal, has seen it. The Holy See conceded a great deal, lifting the excommunications of bishops who had been appointed by the Chinese communist state without papal approval.
In return, there has been no observable improvements for the life of the Church in China. Quite to the contrary, religious persecution has ramped up considerably, and the Holy See has had to suffer one setback after another.
The accord appears to be a significant diplomatic and pastoral failure, and few voices even bother to defend it. Just last week one of the state-controlled Catholic bishops, recognized by Rome, declared that loyalty to the Chinese state — de facto the Communist Party — must be greater than loyalty to the Church.
Cardinal Zen, the courageous and outspoken emeritus bishop of Hong Kong, has repeatedly blasted the accord and the thinking behind it, not sparing sharp words for the role of Cardinal Filoni.
The other great ignominy of Cardinal Filoni’s tenure was the resolution of the impasse in the Diocese of Ahiara, Nigeria.
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