Cardinal Tagle's gift of presence

Cardinal Tagle delivers his homily at the Tenth National Eucharistic Congress of the United States. Photo by Vatican News. Note: Cardinal Tagle's gift of presence was also published by The Manila Times on 14 August 2024.

About a month ago, on 21 July 2024, Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio “Chito” Tagle celebrated the closing Holy Mass of the United States National Eucharistic Congress in a football stadium at Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, together with 60,000 (more or less) Catholics, including some 1,600 seminarians, priests, bishops, and fellow cardinals. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) organized the five-day (17-21 July 2024) event to “rekindle devotion to the sacrament of the Eucharist.” Pope Francis sent him to this rare gathering (reportedly only the tenth since 1895) as his representative.

In his homily, Cardinal Tagle was flawless, as it were. He inspired reflection. It contained the elements of what a message should be: recognizing the world as it is, no matter how indirectly, including the pains of discord; invoking the gospel for a scattered sheep to regroup and rediscover Jesus in their midst; and ending with a call to action by which to rechart a way forward. I think he tried to address his audience at three levels—one, as part of an institution that is hurting from the inside due to divisive noises involving not only the hierarchy but also among key political figures; two, as an individual member of the universal church; and three, as an organization that needs to carry on with its mandate of bringing the mission back to a wandering church.

“Behave well”

Tagle started by sharing what the pope told him when he asked the latter what message he would relay to the congress participants. According to the cardinal, the pope said: “Conversion to the Eucharist. Conversion to the Eucharist.” Tongue in check, he added that the Vicar of Christ advised him to “behave well.”

It is easy to surmise that both church leaders share a healthy knack for humor. It is also easy to speculate on the context from which the pope speaks.

Perhaps Cardinal Tagle needed to be extra cautious in the use of both verbal and non-verbal messaging?

In a side event of his first and only visit (so far) to the United States in 2015, Pope Francis found himself meeting with a dozen or so people that included Mrs. Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky who, just a week earlier, had served jail time for contempt of court. Her offense? She defied a court ruling that required her to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples on the ground that it violated her Catholic beliefs. A 2014 US Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges obliged county clerks in Kentucky to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Whoever arranged for the meet up with Davis in attendance arguably sought to project Francis’ support for “conscientious objection” in the exercise of one’s official function. That meeting had become a media event that two days later the Vatican felt compelled to issue a statement saying that "the Pope did not enter into the details of the situation of Mrs. Davis and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects."

It turned out that Carlo Maria Viganò, an Italian archbishop who was also the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States at the time, had a hand in staging the media coup. Before his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI as ambassador to the US where he earned a reputation as a key ally of conservatism, Vigano was the secretary-general of the Governorate of Vatican City State. Also, before that, he publicized snippets of information on financial corruption in the Vatican that inflamed the “Vatileaks” scandal of 2012. In 2018, or three years after he organized the pope’s US visit, he accused the pontiff and other Catholic leaders of covering up sexual abuse allegations against former American cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

There was no stopping Vigano since then. He rejected the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 1965), particularly its Declaration on Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions (Nostra aetate), which the council approved by a 2221 – 88 yes-no vote and Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis humanae), approved by a 2308 – 70 yes-no vote.

These declarations, among other key Vatican II documents, provide the worldview that underpins the promotion of ecumenism and opening of church doors to everyone (as Pope Francis likes to call it; a footnote: “catholic” means “universal”) by post-council popes. Ironically, that door has recently been closed to Vigano (unless he eventually does what the prodigal son did), who had been charged for schism. He was subsequently tried and found guilty by the Disciplinary Section of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith with the automatic penalty of excommunication.

Viganò did not present himself in person at his trial, saying he did not recognize the authority of the Dicastery's prefect, nor that of Pope Francis himself, and called the charges against him as a “badge of honor.”

In the US, the clash between the conservatives (of which Vigano is a vocal ally) and the liberals (of which the pope is the prime advocate) arose not only from same-sex unions and LBGTQ+ issues, but also on unresolved questions about giving communion to divorced Catholics and those who publicly support abortion. Some critics of Francis’ papacy think he is not vocal enough on abortion and too kind to divorcees and homosexuals.

Another critic, the now retired cardinal Raymond Burke, who held various cabinet positions in the Holy See, once said that Catholics (which include prominent politicians John Kerry, President Joe Biden, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, among others) who support abortion should not receive the Eucharist. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that those who are in a state of mortal sin should not approach the sacrament of the Eucharist prior to the sacrament of confession. Pope Francis, on the other hand, although he firmly opposes abortion, believes Biden and his kind should not be denied communion.  

Writing for the Vanity Fair, Kathryn Joyce in 2020 commented that “Catholicism’s internal convulsions spilled over into America’s election, as right-wing Catholics, including those at the center of Trump’s campaign, cast the contest as a choice between true defenders of the faith and Joe Biden’s apostate ‘Pope Francis Catholics’.” Catholic Democrat Biden supports abortion while Protestant Republican Trump criminalizes it. Hardly surprising, Vigano, Burke and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, among others, have openly supported Trump over Biden (who recently dropped out of his re-election bid for the US presidential race in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris).

The Manila Times cartoon on 21 August 2024

Pope Francis might be winning the charge for inclusivity, but some Catholics, including fellow priests, are unfollowing him.

When the now retired Cardinal Raymond Burke was a bishop, often tagged in western media as the de facto leader of conservatives, he discouraged fellow American bishops to relax church attitudes towards gay people and those Catholics who have divorced. He had a bunch of supporters, including former Tyler, Texas Bishop Joseph Strickland, another critic of the pope, who once said that while he recognized Francis as the pope, he rejected “his programme of undermining the deposit of faith." Outside of the US, German Cardinals Walter Brandmüller and the late Joachim Meisner, along with Italian Archbishop Carlo Caffarra, joined Burke in making public their grievance against "Amoris Laetitia," the apostolic exhortation by Pope Francis that eased the reception of sacraments by the divorced and remarried.

Pockets of global resistance to the pope’s recent green lighting on pastoral blessings for same-sex couples are also hard to ignore. In Africa where governments of 31 out of 54 countries criminalize at varying degrees homosexuality, the bishops of Malawi and Zambia banned their priests from granting such blessings. In Europe, some bishops in Kazakhstan, Poland and Ukraine are also either wary or confused by the pope’s open-door strategy. Writing for Catholic News Agency, Peter Pinedo reported in January 2024 that “nine bishops from France have instructed priests in their dioceses that they may bless homosexual individuals but should refrain from blessing same-sex couples.” In Germany where the government taxes its citizens on behalf of religious organizations (including the Catholic Church), reports indicate that some 400,000 members officially (meaning with complete documentation) left the church in 2023.

Back in the US, the divisions are reflected in partisan politics. A survey conducted by Pew Research early this year shows a gap between the democrats (liberals) and republicans (conservatives) in relation to the expression of support for Pope Francis. The survey report showed that “89% of U.S. Catholics who are Democrats approve of the pope, while 63% of U.S. Catholics who are Republicans give the pope a thumb-up.” This gap widens dramatically when the pope is disliked: only 7% among Democrats disapprove while 35% of Republicans view him unfavorably.”

Another piece of data that parallels the trend in Europe and, to some extent, in Africa, shows that the pope’s average approval rating of 75% among U.S. Catholics represents a consistently worrying drop from 83% in 2021 and 90% in early 2015.

The brickbat is that the USCCB launched its Eucharistic Congress to compete for attention with the Synod on Synodality, a 4-year process (2021 – 2024) that the pope initiated for the Catholic Church “to collaboratively chart its path in the modern era.”  In a recent Where Peter Is blog post, Mike Lewis thinks aloud that “the lineup of speakers for the Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis features very few who are known for promoting the pope’s vision for the Church, whereas many (such as Patrick Madrid, Jason Evert, and Scott Hahn) who publicly oppose Pope Francis are on the roster.”

While slow to discourage dissent, Pope Francis has nonetheless expressed displeasure of a "strong, and organized reactionary attitude" of some Catholics in the US. At one point, he called his detractors “backwardists,” which can be defined as an inability to understand (in his own words) “the evolution in the understanding of matters of faith and morals.”

Years of investigations finally led to sanctions being imposed not only against Vigano, but also to Burke and Strickland. In 2021, Pope Francis had spoken of attacks by a Catholic TV Channel, referring to EWTN, as “the work of the devil.”

Cardinal Tagle addressed the Eucharistic Congress before a backdrop of insular walls and pockets of rebellion, so to speak, that challenge the papacy, a backdrop that looms larger in the US than anywhere else.

Gift for others

In his homily, the cardinal acknowledged the pain of being unfollowed, quoting bible passages that told stories when some disciples deserted Jesus. Perhaps recognizing that he was in the middle of a scattered flock, he encouraged everyone to “stay together” and give a gift of presence to each other.

 He recounted how, as written in the Gospel of John, the disciples doubted Jesus when the latter said that “to accept him means first to believe in him, and secondly, to eat his flesh and drink his blood… They also questioned whether Jesus had been sent by God since they knew him as the son of Joseph and Mary. As a result of this, many of his disciples left him… They returned to a way of life without Jesus… Their rejection of the gift of Jesus’ word, body, and blood meant they would not walk with him. And neither could [Jesus] send them on mission.”

 Cardinal Tagle pressed his diplomatic mission:

“I invite you, dear brothers and sisters, to pause and ask rather painful questions about this mysterious rejection of Jesus by his disciples. By his disciples.

“Is it possible that we, his disciples, contribute also to the departure of others from Jesus? Why do some people leave Jesus when he is giving the most precious gift of eternal life? … Do the youth feel listened to and heard about their search for Jesus? What cultural mindsets challenge the faith in Jesus’ word and gift of self? Now I shift my line of questioning.

“Maybe there are people who desire to be present with the Lord, but they hesitate to come, like the poor, the homeless, the migrants, the refugees, the indigenous people, the hearing-impaired, the elderly, and many other hidden people who might feel they do not belong.”

 The wicked heckler in me could not help but wonder how he could have added in that list the LGBTQ+ community members, the divorced and remarried Catholics, the pro-abortion politicians, among many others, but the good cardinal really chose to “behave well.” 

 “But let us not lose heart,” the cardinal continued. “Jesus will not get tired of coming to us with the gift of himself, even when he is wounded… After the departure of some disciples, Jesus asked the twelve apostles, ‘Do you also want to leave?’ Simon Peter answered him, ‘Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.’ Jesus is asking each one of us, ‘Do you also want to leave me like the others?’ I hope we can answer like Peter, ‘We will stay with you, Lord.’”

 The last point could have been addressed to schismatics like Vigano, but I am too opinionated.

 The key takeaway, I think, was Carginal Tagle taking the role of a cheerleader: “Those who choose to stay with Jesus will be sent by Jesus. The gift of his presence and love for us will be our gift to people… The gift we have received, we should give as a gift… So a Eucharistic people is a missionary and evangelizing people.

Cardinal Tagle offered a nuanced understanding of the link between Vatican II, particularly that of the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et spes), and the theme of the National Eucharistic Congress, which he said was taken from the sixth chapter of the Gospel of St. John: “In the fullness of time, the Father sent His eternal Word, who became flesh, through the Holy Spirit. He was present among us human beings, as one like us in the flesh, except in sin. The Son sent by the Father came as a life-giving gift, a gift in the human flesh of Jesus, ‘My flesh for the life of the world,’ Jesus Himself declares. We should note that Jesus’ description of His being sent by the Father is always connected to the gift of His flesh for others, being sent and being a gift.”

He added: “In the Gospel of John, chapter 6, verse 38, Jesus says, ‘For I came down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will of the One who sent me.’ Jesus has a profound consciousness of having been sent, of being on a mission. He also says in John 6, 32, ‘My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.’ But what is this bread? He says in verse 35, ‘I am the bread of life.’ Jesus is sent to be given by the Father to others, sent to be a gift. He is not sent just to wander around and to enjoy Himself. He is sent to be given. The missioner is a gift. Mission is not just about work, but also about the gift of oneself. Jesus fulfills His mission by giving Himself, His flesh, His presence to others as the Father wills it.

“The presence of Jesus in the Eucharist is a gift and the fulfillment of His mission. This is my body for you, my blood for you. Always for you, for all. Never for me, for you, for all. In Jesus’ mission and gift of self-meet, the Eucharist is a privileged moment to experience Jesus’ mission as a gift of Himself.”

Father Raymond J. de Souza of the National Catholic Register writes that “in his emphasis on the Eucharistic revelation of Christ as a gift, Cardinal Tagle gave a sacramental dimension to those key Vatican II texts. His homily clearly inspired — and occasionally entertained! — those in the stadium, but he offered more than inspiration. He offered a Eucharistic recasting of Providence as an act of gift giving and giving of self as the way in which we are created in the image and likeness of God.”

Cardinal Tagle did not explicitly quote Gaudium et espes, but these texts enlighten and are helpful:

Only in Christ can man fully understand himself (GS, 22). Christ reveals not only the Father, but who man is created to be. The Father sends the Son as a gift to the world, and the Son gives his flesh for the life of the world. Thus Jesus reveals who man is, and Jesus is a gift.

If Jesus is a gift, and he reveals who man is, then it follows that man too is meant to be a gift. Hence, “man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (GS, 24).

Go

In nudging the flock to go on a mission, Cardinal Tagle asked: “What do you see in a poor person, in a homeless person, in a sick person, in someone who differs from you? Like Jesus, let us give a gift of presence to each other.”

He said that a possible reason for the weakening of missionary zeal is partly due to the weaking in the appreciation of gifts and giftedness: “We do not see gifts in persons and events. And those who do not see gifts in themselves and in others will not give gifts. They will not go on a mission.”

I think the weakening of the mission is also partly due to the cost of renewal, perhaps an unintended tradeoff for dispensing tradition and promoting liberal reforms. By embracing secular issues such as same-sex unions and abortion as its own, one may view that the church has given up its unique role in society and has morphed into just another secular organization. Its moral suasion is fair game to the wisdom of secularism. A secular court in Belgium, for example, has ruled in June this year that two Catholic Bishops must indemnify a woman who complained that she was denied access to training for the diaconate. An inviolable church law that may however change overtime disallows women to become priests or deacons.

A loose interpretation of Vatican II’s “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church” (Lumen gentium) that anyone can be saved by practicing any religion could be another reason for why missionary activities have become pointless. This view departs from old church doctrine, starting with the Fourth Lateran Council 1215 which stated that “There is indeed one universal church of the faithful, outside of which nobody at all is saved (IV, 1).

In 2016, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI noted that contemporary theologizing about “no salvation outside the Church” was leading to “a deep double crisis”: a loss of motivation for missionary work, and a loss of motivation for the faith itself.”

But there could be no misinterpreting Cardinal Tagle’s preaching:

“Jesus is sent to be given by the Father to others. He is sent to be a gift, to be given… Mission is not just about work but also about the gift of oneself. Jesus fulfills his mission by giving himself, his flesh, his presence, to others, as the Father wills it. Jesus’ mission and gift of self meet in the Eucharist.”

Papabile, a footnote

Known in media circles as “Asian Francis” for sharing many qualities with the pope (humble, progressive, and overflowing with missionary gifts) Cardinal Tagle has been widely considered as one of the papabiles (contender to become a pope). Pope Francis trusts him, as indicated by sending him as his envoy to the US Eucharistic Congress.

His reputation as an operations guy came into question when in 2022 he was replaced as president of Caritas, the Catholic Church's leading humanitarian and social service confederation (consisting of around 162 Caritas organizations operating in 200 countries and territories around the world) following an investigation showed the inability of the leadership to arrest slipping staff morale.  

But his missionary spirit and reputation as an authentic messenger cannot be questioned. Aside from his stint at Caritas, Pope Francis has appointed him to positions of consequence in Rome (the Pro-Prefect for the Section of Evangelization of Dicastery for Evangelization [formerly the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples], President of Interdicasterial Commission for Consecrated Religious, President of Catholic Biblical Federation, President of Caritas International, and membership in the Pontifical Council for the Family, Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Pontifical Council for the Laity, and XIII Ordinary Council of the Secretariat General of the Synod of Bishops, Pontifical Council 'Cor Unum,' etc.)