Asia’s best hope for the papacy, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, is a young, electric orator who has been outspoken about the need for Catholic Church leaders to be more open and humble.
Born to a working-class couple in a then-rural town two hours’ drive south of the Philippine capital, Tagle rose to become Archbishop of Manila in 2011 at the age of just 54.
He was named a cardinal in November last year, becoming the official chief spiritual leader to the Philippines’ more than 80 million Catholics.
This came shortly after Tagle was summoned to Rome for a synod to map out the way forward for the Church, which has been rocked by scandals over sexual abuse by paedophile priests going back decades.
“The Church must learn humility from Jesus,” Tagle said in a speech to the synod, arguing that spreading the faith in a secularising world would be more effective if the Church learned to listen to the people.
“(You) may be saying the right things but people will not listen if the manner by which you communicate reminds them of a triumphalistic, know-it-all institution,” he said according to an account of the speech by Vatican Radio.
At another Vatican conference last year, Tagle urged the Church in Asia to tackle the sex abuse issue before it became a full-blown crisis there, and put in place safeguard measures that take into account the region’s cultural norms.