Cardinal Re steps down, Cardinal Tagle takes his place: for the first time, a Filipino is the leader of all the world’s cardinals

(ZENIT News / Rome, 11.10.2026).- Pope Leo XIV has approved the election of Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle as dean of the College of Cardinals. Announced on October 9, the appointment ends Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re’s tenure at the age of 92 and gives the 69-year-old Filipino prelate a prominent role in preparing the Church for a future conclave.

Tagle, pro-prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelization, was elected on October 8 by the cardinals belonging to the College’s Order of Bishops. He will retain his title associated with the suburbicarian See of Albano while also assuming that of Ostia, traditionally linked to the dean. He is the first Asian cardinal to hold the position, a distinction that adds symbolic weight to his appointment as Catholicism continues to grow and develop across different regions of the world.

The dean is not a superior with governing authority over the other cardinals. Rather, he serves as a coordinator and assumes particular responsibilities when the papacy becomes vacant. He presides over important ceremonies surrounding a pope’s death, helps convene the cardinals for the conclave and, if he is under 80 and therefore eligible to vote, presides over the election. After the ballots produce a winner, the dean asks the elected cardinal whether he accepts the papacy and what name he wishes to take.

These responsibilities make the office highly visible at the moment when the Church must choose its next leader. Tagle was already considered a possible candidate in the 2025 conclave that elected Leo XIV. His new role is likely to bring greater international attention, although it does not make him the automatic favorite in any future election. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was dean when he was elected Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, demonstrating that the office and the papacy can coincide in one person’s career without establishing a rule.

Tagle succeeds a figure whose experience spans several pontificates. Born in the Italian region of Brescia, Re served in the Holy See’s diplomatic service before taking on senior responsibilities in the Secretariat of State. He later became secretary and then prefect of the Vatican office responsible for bishops, leading it from 2000 to 2010. His long service gave him an unusually broad view of the Church’s leadership and administration.

His role became especially important during the 2013 conclave. Although he was an elector, the then-dean, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, was over 80 and therefore unable to enter the conclave. Re consequently performed the dean’s principal functions during the election that made Jorge Mario Bergoglio the first pope from Latin America. In April 2025, he again occupied the center of the Church’s public life, presiding at Pope Francis’s funeral and at the Mass before the conclave that elected Leo XIV on May 7.

Re had become dean in 2020, succeeding Sodano. Pope Francis renewed his mandate in January 2025, extending his service through the transition following Francis’s death. His departure now reflects a change of generation at the head of the College of Cardinals, even as he retains his title associated with Sabina-Poggio Mirteto and becomes dean emeritus.

The position’s terms had themselves been changed under Francis. In 2019, he established a five-year mandate for the dean, renewable once, rather than an appointment held for life. The reform responded to the growing number of cardinals and the increasing demands placed on the office. Re’s tenure, including its renewal, unfolded under this revised system.

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