CNA Newsroom, May 18, 2024 / 10:35 am (CNA).
Pope Francis has appointed Cardinal Luis Antonio G. Tagle, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, as his special envoy to the National Eucharistic Congress in the United States, which will be celebrated in Indianapolis July 17–21. The announcement was made Saturday by the Vatican.
Tagle will celebrate the closing Mass of the 10th National Eucharistic Congress.
Calling the appointment “a gift to the Eucharistic Congress,” Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), said that Tagle’s “deep passion for apostolic mission rooted in the Eucharist is sure to have an inspirational impact for everyone attending the Congress,” according to a USCCB press release. Broglio also pointed out that Tagle knows the U.S. well as he earned a doctorate in theology at the Catholic University of America in 1991.
This will be the first National Eucharistic Congress in over half a century and a pivotal event in the three-year National Eucharistic Revival, leading into the final year of the revival — the Year of Missionary Sending.
“The congress will give public witness to the Church’s core identity rooted in the Eucharist, and we pray that it will inspire a renewed sense of mission as we live out the gifts of unity and charity,” Broglio said in the USCCB statement. “May it be the catalyst for a continued deepening of our faith in the Real Presence.”
This weekend marks the beginning of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimages, consisting of four different routes beginning on opposite sides of the country and meeting in Indianapolis for the Congress in July. Collectively the four pilgrimage routes will traverse 6,500 miles, 27 states, and 65 dioceses while carrying Christ in the Eucharist.
More information on the Eucharistic Revival, Pilgrimage, and Congress can be found at https://www.eucharisticrevival.org.
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The next Pope? Maybe.
“Broglio pointed out that [Cardinal] Tagle knows the U.S. well . . .”
We can only hope that the cardinal’s understanding and appreciation exceeds those of his boss.
exceed
Something to watch…
Tagle might well be totally Eucharistic, no reason to doubt this, and yet in the past he has been interpreted as the most likely Francis II on the papabile list, except for his possibly disqualifying young age (71 in June).
ON THE ONE HAND:
“…when it comes to popular causes, Cardinal Tagle has shown himself to be a clear and vocal advocate. This is especially true of issues such as ecology, seen most recently in his active participation in the Pachamama ritual in the Vatican Gardens. Along with his ambiguous statements about the goodness of all religions, these factors raise questions about what Tagle believes is the essence of the gospel. His appointment as prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and elevation to the rank of cardinal-bishop nevertheless place Tagle in a leading position for the papacy if voting cardinals desire continuity with Francis’ pontificate” (final words in the detailed and documented Tagle report and summary (one of 19 in Edward Pentin, editor, “The Next Pope: The Leading Cardinal Candidates,” Sophia Institute Press, 2020, p. 584).
ON THE OTHER HAND:
Tagle possibly offers a welcome contrast to Pope Francis’ stale caricature about American “conservatives” and now to drooling journalists that they are “suicidal”, Sunday May 20: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2024/05/16/pope-francis-says-conservative-critics-have-a-suicidal-attitude/
This from Cardinal Tagle:
“Let me address the journalists. I don’t think it is helpful to label people. Labeling people as progressive, as conservative, as traditionalists, may hinder a full listening to them. If we have decided already in our minds, ‘this person is traditionalist,’ whatever the person says, you or we, will always say, “Ah, traditionalist.” Or if the person says something that does not sound traditionalist, we change the label–‘Ah, he’s not a traditionalist, he’s a progressive” (p. 575, fn. October 2014).
OR, as an unambiguously Eucharistic cardinal, is Tagle nevertheless just one bipolar step in our incoherent failure to do both ressourcement (of the Source) and aggiornamento (engagement in/not of the world): as in “one step to the right, two steps to the left”?
While synodally “walking together,” how to both walk and chew gum at the same time?