The next Pope?

For a moment, I really thought that someone high up in the Vatican reads my column. But the appointment of only one instead of two cardinals for the Philippines belied such naughty notions.

Still, the announcement of the red hat for Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio ‘Chito’ Tagle was met in Rome with much whisper amid overwhelming approval. With the reigning pope now clearly ailing, a younger and fresher face for the papacy appears imminent. Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle may well be the frontrunner for the papacy should the time come.

Although there are no biblical referents to the position of cardinal in Christianity, such a position has become extremely important over the last three to five centuries when increasing rivalries among the Italian archbishops working inside the Vatican (or the Roman Curia, for short) and those outside made it an important body whose main work is to elect from among themselves the next pope.

Comes now this latest appointment of six archbishops to the College of Cardinals, none of them Italian. In Rome as well as in other parts of Europe, the six names were seen as a silent but forceful indication of Pope Benedict XVI’s desire to have a successor who will not come from within the Vatican, where the number of conservative Italian cardinals running the entire bureaucracy is gradually dwindling. Of course Pope Benedict XVI himself had come from within, which makes even the absence of Italians among the six even more telling. As Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI was the most powerful man inside the Vatican during much of the papacy of his predecessor. Now that he is pope, is he sending a signal that, like Pope John Paul II and him, the better popes will have to come from countries beyond the borders of Italy?

I do not know anything about Cardinal Tagle (yes, he is effectively a Cardinal already as his investiture on Nov. 23 is merely ceremonial). But I have heard a lot about him: his intelligence, his humility, his mild manners and his capacity to be funny without even trying. I saw him for the first time last Saturday at the vigil for San Pedro Calungsod at the Chiesa di Prudenziana in Rome, which was more than full to capacity. He had arrived on a simple Fiat Uno, driven if I’m not mistaken by Fr. Jon Limchua, a Cebuano priest studying in Rome.

At first no one noticed him as everyone’s back was towards the church. I, on the other hand, could not get in and was with my nephew, Andre Paquito Yu, on the sidewalk across the church. Everyone was most probably enthralled by all the politicians inside the tiny church, or were listening intently to the testimonies, albeit delivered in Italian (why do that to a Filipino audience?). So, no one but I took notice of his arrival.

The car parked barely a few meters from where we stood. I smiled at the person on the passenger seat beside the driver. And the archbishop waved back with an impish smile at me, as I mouthed the words “Bishop Tagle?”  Even I was not sure who he was, dressed in a simple priest’s black cassock. He was there to deliver the homily, which I was told was the most illuminating yet the simplest among the sermons that were delivered in the Masses in the days prior to the canonization ceremony.

There are many anecdotes about archbishop and many priests have their different stories to tell. After all, nearly all the younger priests in the Philippines would have studied under him at one time or another. There is this one story told to me by Fr. Generoso “Jun” Rebayla, Jr., SVD, my photographer in Rome, incidentally the vice-president for finance at the University of San Carlos, who was with me because we are producing, as I keep repeating in this column, the commemorative book on San Pedro Calungsod.

According to Fr. Jun, when he was still bishop in Cavite, Monsignor Tagle had a priest who could not celebrate Mass in a barangay somewhere in the towns. Given only short notice, he took his bike and pedaled to the barangay. At first the parishioners did not recognize him until someone yelled, “It’s Bishop Tagle.”

If we go by these stories about how down-to-earth and unassuming he is, then let us hope that when he becomes the next Pope, the Roman Curia will not change his ways.

Meanwhile, we await eagerly the appointment of an equally humble and down-to-earth archbishop, Jose Palma, from our very own archdiocese. I heard his appointment will come next year, early next year. And then we too shall say once more, “The next pope?”