Let God take care of them.
That was the terse reaction of Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David to an apparent last-minute campaign to discredit fellow Filipino elector Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle ahead of the conclave to choose the next pope.
“Bahala na ang Diyos sa kanila,” David told CBCP News.
The Kalookan bishop and president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) was reacting specifically to a report in an Italian newspaper, quoting unnamed sources, tying Tagle to a network of casino operations and even accusing him of being a gambling addict.
David made the remark as he prepared to enter the conclave, which begins on Wednesday, May 7.
The attack on Tagle, dubbed by the global media as the “Asian Francis” for embodying many of the late pontiff’s key qualities, such as charisma, underscores the status of the highest-ranking Filipino cardinal as a papal contender.
On May 3, the CBCP issued a statement defending Tagle after a US-based group accused the former Manila archbishop of not doing enough to address sexual abuse in the Church.
“He has consistently advocated for a humble and responsive Church that listens to the cries of the wounded and acts decisively to protect the vulnerable,” said the statement, signed by Msgr. Bernardo Pantin, the CBCP secretary general.
Tagle has also been faulted for allegedly not speaking out more strongly against thousands of extrajudicial killings during the Duterte administration.
Joselito Zulueta, a veteran journalist and analyst on Church affairs who covered the 2005 and 2013 conclaves and the 2015 papal visit, said such criticism of Tagle was “unfair.”
“As early as August 2016 thereabouts or the first months of Duterte, Tagle had spoken versus EJKs,” he said.
“David and Bishop Broderick Pabillo might have been more vehement voices vs EJKs but that’s because bishops sometimes have to play good cop/bad cop to state leaders,” he added.
“Even Pope Francis when he was Jesuit provincial of Argentina had to caution more politically inclined Jesuits against extreme negative activism and for them to leave open some room for dialogue and engagement with abusive state actors.”
Claretian priest Fr. Arnold Abelardo also defended Tagle’s response to the Duterte-era killings.
“Cardinal Tagle worked with us in promoting community-based drug rehabilitation for poor and marginalized persons who used drugs. I was a witness to how he engaged government agencies and officials on ways to help rehabilitate [these persons],” he said in a comment to an article about Tagle posted on social media.
“He was not silent. He was doing a lot with us. If you mean arguing or exchanging words with Duterte, that was not his way, but he stood with us and encouraged us to find ways to help people … He was loud and clear to authorities that life is sacred and killings is not the answer. I was there with him,” Abelardo said.
