Smear campaign versus Cardinal Tagle? CBCP denounces this.
Was there a last-minute campaign to discredit Cardinal Tagle? Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David has this to say.
The world mourned when Pope Francis died. He passed away at the age of 88 due to a stroke that led to a coma and caused his heart to fail. Amid the mourning and the grieving, a reality must go on, a tradition that will put a new cardinal to replace the late pope.
The papal conclave will start on May 7, and among the emerging front-runners to be the next pope is Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle.
He and other cardinals, such as Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Cardinal Peter Erdo, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Cardinal Peter Turkson, Cardinal Sergio da Rocha, Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes, Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonca, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, and Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, are the potential successors to the pope.
Ahead of the election for the new pope, a smear campaign against Cardinal Tagle allegedly surfaced. Kalookan bishop and president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, reacted to the apparent last-minute campaign to discredit the fellow Filipino cardinal, and he told the CBCP News, “Bahala na ang Diyos sa kanila.”
Previously, based on a report from an Italian newspaper, Tagle was tied to a network of casino operations, with the accusation that the Filipino cardinal is a gambling addict.
To recall, on May 3, the CBCP issued a statement to defend Tagle against the accusation about him for not doing enough to address sexual abuse in the Church. He was also faulted for not speaking about the extrajudicial killings during the Duterte administration.
As much as we all know, Tagle is the “Asian Francis,” as he possesses the late pontiff’s key qualities, such as charisma. He is part of the conclave and the other Filipino cardinals are CBCP President and Diocese of Kalookan Bishop Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David and Manila Archbishop Cardinal Jose Advincula.
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