Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle has been elected dean of the College of Cardinals, succeeding Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who has held the position since 2020. The Filipino prelate is the first Asian to serve as dean.
The Vatican announced Tagle’s appointment on Oct. 9. In the same announcement, Pope Leo XIV approved Tagle’s election one day earlier, on Oct. 8, and accepted Re’s resignation that day.
According to canon law, the cardinal dean is elected from among the cardinal bishops (12 cardinal-bishops as of October 2026). Among the dean’s responsibilities is to summon the cardinals to Rome on the pope’s behalf, particularly for a papal conclave. However, he has no governing authority over them.
After Leo XIV’s election to the papacy, all curial officials automatically lost their positions. However, Leo confirmed Re as dean and Argentine cardinal Leonardo Sandri as vice-dean, a position Sandri still holds.
Pope Francis approved Re in 2020 as dean of the college while setting a new five-year term of service for deans with the possibility of renewal. Previously, the position of dean, considered “first among equals,” was a lifetime appointment.
Re, 92, was made a cardinal by St. John Paul II in 2001 and has worked in the Roman Curia since 1963. He officiated the 2013 conclave, which elected Pope Francis, as the most senior cardinal-bishop.
Tagle, 69, has served as the pro-prefect for the Section for First Evangelization and New Particular Churches of the Dicastery for Evangelization since 2019. Before his appointment to the Roman Curia, he served as archbishop of Manila from 2011–2020.
Tagle has also been appointed as papal legate to several milestone Church events, including in the United States. He was appointed legate to the 10th National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis in July 2024 and to the beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen in St. Louis in September 2026.
Before being elected pope in 2025, Leo XIV, then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, was chosen by Francis as the titular cardinal-bishop of Albano. Soon after his election, the pontiff assigned his former cardinal title to Tagle, and Tagle formally took possession of the see in October of the same year.
This article was originally published on EWTN News.
