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PHILIPPINE Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle became the first dicastery head of the Roman Curia to contract the new coronavirus after he tested positive upon arrival in Manila.
In a Vatican News report, the Holy See Press Office revealed that the Tagle swab test, which was conducted on Thursday, September 10, returned a positive result.
“The cardinal does not have any symptoms and will remain in mandatory self-quarantine in the Philippines,” said the director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, as quoted by Vatican News.
The report added that contact tracing has already begun among those who were close contacts of Tagle recently.
“Necessary controls are being carried out among those who have come into contact with His Eminence in recent days,” Bruni said.
According to Vatican News, the 63-year-old Tagle had undergone a swab test in Rome on September 7 and the result was negative.
In a separate report, CBCP News said that the concurrent president of Caritas Internationalis left the Vatican for Manila on Wednesday, September 9, and arrived on Thursday, September 10.
Before his departure, on Sept. 8, Tagle attended an online retreat for Philippine Covid-19 leaders, the official news agency of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of the Philippines (CBCP) reported.
CBCP News also noted that Tagle has stayed at the Pontifical Collegio Filippino since arriving in Rome in February.
He added that the Cardinal’s last meeting with Pope Francis in a private audience was on August 29.
Meanwhile, the Archdiocese of Manila immediately asked the faithful to offer their prayers for Tagle’s speedy recovery.
“Let us offer humble prayers for the safety and recovery of our beloved Cardinal, Luis Antonio Tagle, of Covid-19,” said the Archdiocese of Manila.
Before his appointment to the Holy See, Tagle served as Archbishop of Manila since 2011.
In December 2019 he was appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
Pope Francis brought Tagle, the former Archbishop of Manila, to Rome in February 2020 to take charge of one of the largest and most important congregations in the Vatican.
The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples oversees the Catholic Church in Asia, Africa, and other mission territories.
Subsequently, Pope Francis appointed Tagle cardinal-bishop, a classification that made clear the Pope’s esteem for him.
The promotions have increased Tagle’s visibility within the church hierarchy and have given him experience working within the Holy See bureaucracy. Those two factors help make him a potential papal contender in a future conclave despite his relatively young age. Francis, 83, was 76 when he became pope.
The Vatican, a small city-state in central Rome, shut down along with the rest of Italy in early March, halting all non-essential meetings, hearings and travel. It has reported a dozen confirmed cases of the virus.
Francis, who lost part of a lung to illness as a young man, resumed his general audience last week before a limited crowd. This week, he was seen wearing a face mask for the first time. (HDT / AP / SunStar Philippines)
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