He never aspired to be a priest. After he rose to be a bishop, he implied that he suffered from impostor syndrome. And when Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle of the Philippines is asked if he could become the first Asian pope — a frequent question in recent years — he says it is impossible.
“Thinking of myself in that position, no, no, I laugh at it,” Cardinal Tagle told the BBC in 2015. “I cannot even manage my life. How can I manage a worldwide community?”
By then he had already been talked about as a potential replacement for Pope Benedict XVI. Now 67, Cardinal Tagle (pronounced TAG-leh) is once again on many unofficial short lists of “papabile” cardinals, or those with a good shot at succeeding Pope Francis. The most prominent candidate from Asia, his election would be an emphatic marker of the Roman Catholic Church’s shift away from Europe to Africa and Asia, where it continues to grow.
Francis was the only pope in the modern era who was born outside Europe. If Cardinal Tagle ascends to the papacy, he would be the first Asian pontiff in modern times. (Several popes in antiquity were from Syria, which is technically in West Asia, though it is now considered part of the Middle East.)
At the Vatican, Cardinal Tagle oversees missionary work. Widely known by his nickname “Chito,” he is often called the “Asian Francis” for his ability to connect with the poor, his call for action against climate change and his criticism of the “harsh” stance adopted by Catholic clerics toward gay people, divorced people and unwed mothers. He is popular for his humility, and his homilies have drawn the faithful to the pews and to Facebook streams.
But as leader of the church in the Philippines, he was criticized by activists and fellow priests as being timid about the scourge of clerical sex abuse. Those complaints continued as his profile in the church rose. Last month, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, an advocacy group, urged the Vatican to investigate Cardinal Tagle’s conduct in relation to cases of alleged clerical abuse in the Central African Republic and New Zealand. (The group also sought inquiries into five other cardinals.)
