Overwhelmed by emotion, the support of family and friends, and the
burden of the influential new position he now occupies, newly-installed
Archbishop of Manila, Most Rev. Luis Antonio “Chito” G. Tagle called on
his new flock in the Archdiocese of Manila and all Filipino Catholics
to "grow in compassion for our neighbors" and cast away disunity.
"The new evangelization requires putting on the mind and eyes of
the Lord—a transformation... We need to follow the Lord not individually
but together," Archbishop Tagle said in his first homily Monday after
his installation as the 32nd shepherd of the Manila archdiocese.
"Divisiveness and destructive competition will only serve to sink the boat," he also said.
Not about him
Archbishop Tagle reminded himself and those who witnessed his
installation that the rite they had just been part of was not about him
but about God.
“Is this occasion really about me?” Tagle said before an audience
that included Catholic Church officials from all over the world,
politicians, and other dignitaries.
“I am inviting you to focus on the one mightier than all of us—Jesus Christ,” said Tagle, who goes by the episcopal motto “Dominus est” (“It is the Lord”).
His episcopal motto comes from a verse in the Gospel of John, in
which Jesus Christ appeared to his apostles who did not recognize him at
first. It was disciple John who recognized Jesus and said to the
apostles’ leader, Peter: “It is the Lord.”
“Merely assuming the position of archbishop of Manila does not
guarantee that I will recognize the Lord. If I am not careful, this
position might even blind me to the Lord and to others. It is rather by
being a humble disciple, content with the love of Jesus, that I will see
the advent,” he said.
A television preacher, the humorous Tagle added, “Aba’y sa pasimula pa lang, hanggang ngayon, para akong star at lahat kayo’y nasa introducing role lang. Kapag hindi ako mag-ingat, aba, baka isipin ko, ‘Talaga naman, Chito, sikat na sikat ka na!’”
"Love makes the true shepherd, not the position," he added and the
congregation gathered at the Manila Cathedral responded with approving
applause.
Focus on the poor
The real challenge in his new position, Tagle noted, is to help the disadvantaged in society.
“In spite of our good intentions and efforts, there is still a
multitude of hungry people we cannot feed, homeless people we cannot
shelter, battered women and children we cannot protect, cases of
corruption and injustice that we cannot remedy,” he said.
Tagle said he hopes for a transformation that leads Filipinos to “see differently.”
He said this would have happened when “a child, especially an
unborn child, is no longer seen as a burden but as a gift… women are not
objects but persons; laborers are not machines but partners; the poor,
the differently abled, are not a nuisance but are our jewels; and
creation is not an object of manipulation but a sign of God’s sustaining
love.”
Tagle said he hopes his position will help him become “a better disciple” in serving other people.
Hesitant, trembling
Tagle takes on the pastoral mantle of the Manila Archdiocese with
some trepidation. When his immediate predecessor, Gaudencio Cardinal
Rosales, led him to the archbishop's throne, Tagle hesitated to sit on
it.
"I tremble before the Love that calls me to lead these great people to the Lord," he said in his homily.
The pastor of the most influential archdiocese in the country
recognized the many challenges that lay ahead, including poverty and
corruption.
"The long night of the disciples in the middle of the sea
continues in us. Then we grow in compassion for our neighbors...In our
weariness the Lord comes. Dumarating siya lalo na kapag tayo ay pagod na pagod at litong-lito."
‘Could be pope’
Going by the retirement age of Cardinal Rosales, who is now 79,
Archbishop Tagle–now only 54 years old–could reign for a
quarter-century. That is, if he is not elevated to higher office like
the papacy or succumbs to illness.
"Some church watchers in Rome and the Philippines say that Tagle could be pope someday," wrote John Allen Jr. senior correspondent of the United States' National Catholic Reporter.
"Tagle, who goes by the nickname ‘Chito,’ is well-loved for his
warmth and humor, for his simplicity, for his ability to express complex
ideas in attractive and understandable language, for his balance and
openness, and for his lack of ego," Allen also wrote.
Raymond de Souza in an article published in Catholic Canada
the day after Tagle's appointment as Manila archbishop was announced,
said Pope Benedict the XVI could make the former bishop of Imus a
cardinal in 2012.
"And as soon as late next year—by which point the Philippines'
traditional group of papal electors will all have aged out of a
hypothetical conclave—the prelate widely seen as a ‘Bishop of the Poor’
is likely to become the youngest Latin-church member of the scarlet-clad
College that'll elect B16's successor," de Souza wrote. –KG, GMA News
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