Cardinal Tagle is new dean of the College of Cardinals

First Asian to lead the College of Cardinals

MANILA, Philippines (Third update: 7:32 p.m.) — Pope Leo XIV has approved the election of Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle as dean of the College of Cardinals, making him the first Asian to preside over the body that elects popes.

The Holy See announced the change on Friday, October 9, a day after Pope Leo approved the vote by the cardinal-bishops, the highest order of cardinals.

He replaces Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, a 92-year-old cardinal who had held the post since January 2020 and whose resignation the pope accepted this week.

The dean is one of the only top posts in the Vatican not appointed directly by the pope. The role is viewed as symbolic in authority, with its main duties centered on the convening of a conclave when a pope dies or resigns, among others. 

Deans serve five-year terms that can be renewed once, under rules introduced by Pope Francis in 2019. Before that, the post had no fixed term. 

Francis extended Re's term in January 2025, and Re presided at Francis's funeral that April. He now becomes dean emeritus.

From Manila to the Vatican

Tagle, a former archbishop of Manila, was considered one of the leading candidates to become pope at the conclave that elected Leo, the first pope from the United States, who also holds Peruvian citizenship.

From 2023, the two worked in the Vatican's central administration at the same time: Leo, known as then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, served as the head of the dicastery for bishops, while Tagle led the dicastery for evangelization.

Leo has kept Tagle in that post as pro-prefect of the section for first evangelization (a role which he runs alongside the pope, the department's formal head).

At Leo's inauguration Mass in May 2025, Tagle presented the Fisherman's Ring to the pope, a task carried out by a cardinal-bishop. 

Leo later gave Tagle the title of the suburbicarian Diocese of Albano, near Rome, which Leo himself had held as a cardinal.

In April this year, Leo appointed Tagle a member of the Dicastery for Communication, which runs the Vatican's media and communications arm. 

Last month, Tagle represented Leo as papal legate at the beatification of US Archbishop Fulton Sheen in the US. 

Honorary title of Ostia diocese

As dean, Tagle also assumes the title of the Suburbicarian Church of Ostia, which traditionally goes to the dean, and keeps that of Albano. 

Pope Francis brought Tagle to Rome in 2019 to head the Vatican's missionary department and in 2020 made him the first Filipino cardinal-bishop.