Cardinal Tagle elected new Dean of College of Cardinals
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle was elected Dean of the College of Cardinals, succeeding 92-year-old Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re. Tagle, a Filipino cardinal and Pro-Prefect in the Dicastery for Evangelization, will also assume the title of the Suburbicarian Church of Ostia while retaining Albano. Re steps down as Dean and becomes Dean Emeritus after serving nearly seven years, including presiding over the 2025 papal funeral rites and the Mass before the conclave. Pope Francis’s 2019 reform made the Dean’s role a renewable five-year term rather than a lifetime appointment.
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Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, 69, has been elected Dean of the College of Cardinals, succeeding 92-year-old Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re. Tagle is the first Asian to hold the position; his election took place on October 8, 2026, and the Vatican announced it the following day after Pope Leo XIV approved it and accepted Re’s resignation. 1 2
Tagle is the pro-prefect of the Section for First Evangelization and New Particular Churches within the Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelization. He previously served as archbishop of Manila from 2011 to 2020 and has held his Vatican post since 2019. 1 2
Re, who became dean in 2020 and was reappointed in 2025, is now Dean Emeritus. He retains the title of the Suburbicarian Church of Sabina-Poggio Mirteto; Tagle will take the title of Ostia while retaining Albano, which Pope Leo held before his election. Argentine Cardinal Leonardo Sandri remains vice-dean. 1 2 3
Pope Francis changed the deanship in 2019 from a lifetime appointment to a five-year term, renewable once. The dean is elected by the cardinal-bishops and coordinates the cardinals’ activities, but does not have governing authority over them. 1 2 3
The dean’s key responsibility is to convene the cardinals in Rome for a conclave and preside over it if he is under 80. At 69, Tagle is currently eligible to do so. 1 2
Re, a cardinal since 2001 and a longtime Roman Curia official, served under four popes. He carried out the dean’s duties during the 2013 conclave, and in 2025 presided over Pope Francis’s funeral rites and the Mass preceding the conclave that elected Leo XIV. 1 2
Tagle has represented the pope at major Church events, including the 2024 National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis and the September 2026 beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen in St. Louis. 2 3
The Dean embodies collegiality within papal governance
That is true in a qualified sense. The Dean’s presidency gives visible form to the College of Cardinals’ shared service to the Pope: the College assists him in important matters and elects the Bishop of Rome in conclave.
But the Dean does not govern the other cardinals or exercise papal authority. Canon law describes him as first among equals; Pope Francis characterized the role as a fraternal presidency among fellow cardinals. Thus, the Dean embodies collegial cooperation around papal ministry, not a separate or shared jurisdiction over the Church.