Leo XIV has accepted his resignation and, on 8 October, approved the election of Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle as his successor.
This was announced today, Friday, by the Holy See Press Office.
Re becomes Dean Emeritus and retains the suburbicarian see of Sabina-Poggio Mirteto; Tagle, 69, receives the title of Ostia, reserved for the Dean, without relinquishing that of Albano, which Leo XIV himself assigned him in May 2025—the same title Prevost held before being elected Pope.
The appointment appears to be a routine handover, yet it carries far-reaching consequences. For the first time since 2007, when Angelo Sodano turned 80, the Dean of the Sacred College is an elector.
Should the Holy See fall vacant before Tagle turns 80 in June 2037, he would enter the Sistine Chapel to preside over the conclave.
What the Dean is
Canon 352 of the Code of Canon Law defines the Dean as the one who presides over the College of Cardinals without any governing authority over them, as primus inter pares. He is elected by the cardinals of the Order of Bishops, and the Roman Pontiff approves the election.
Until 2019 the office was for life; Francis, in accepting Angelo Sodano’s resignation, limited it by motu proprio to a renewable five-year term.
In ordinary times the role is largely ceremonial. Everything changes when the Pope dies or resigns.
According to the apostolic constitution Universi Dominici Gregis, the Dean must inform the diplomatic corps and heads of state of the Pontiff’s death, convoke the cardinals, preside over the general congregations preceding the conclave, and, by custom, celebrate the funeral of the late Pope.
Inside the Sistine Chapel, if he is an elector, he directs the ballots, asks the elected candidate whether he accepts and what name he wishes to take, and, should the new Pope not be a bishop, ordains him.
The general congregations are, in practice, the real conclave before the conclave. There the order of interventions is set, the timetable is fixed, and the atmosphere in which the cardinals approach the vote is shaped. The one who presides does not choose the Pope, but wields considerable influence over the climate in which the choice is made.
The end of the Re era
Re, former Substitute of the Secretariat of State and Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, was elected Dean in January 2020.
His mandate expired in January 2025, and Francis, against all expectations, extended it without a set term.
A few weeks later, the Brescian cardinal, aged 91, presided over Bergoglio’s funeral and led the congregations that culminated in the election of Leo XIV.
In the Sistine Chapel, because both he and Vice-Dean Leonardo Sandri were barred by age, the duties fell to Pietro Parolin.
That anomaly—a Dean and Vice-Dean without a vote—is now being corrected. The communiqué makes no mention of changes in the vice-deanship, which remains in the hands of Sandri, 82.
Who Tagle is
Born in Manila in 1957, Tagle served as Bishop of Imus, Archbishop of Manila from 2011 to 2019, and has been a cardinal since 2012, appointed by Benedict XVI. Francis brought him to Rome as Prefect of the then Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, elevated him in 2020 to the Order of Bishops, and, after the Curia reform, kept him as Pro-Prefect of the Section for First Evangelization and New Particular Churches of the Dicastery for Evangelization, whose Prefect is the Pope himself.
This dicastery oversees the mission territories of Asia and Africa and has handled the implementation of the provisional agreement with Beijing on the appointment of bishops.
His record includes well-known shadows. In November 2022 Francis removed the leadership of Caritas Internationalis, which Tagle chaired, following an internal audit on workplace climate.
Theologically, he was formed in the orbit of the so-called Bologna school, collaborated on the history of Vatican II directed by Giuseppe Alberigo, and has been one of the most affable faces of the pastoral line opened by Amoris laetitia.
His emotional style, his public tears, and the celebrated video in which he sang John Lennon’s Imagine have made him a figure deeply loved by some and viewed with suspicion by others.
He arrived at 2025 as the great Asian papabile and left the conclave still in red, yet with the new Pope’s confidence: it was he who presented Leo XIV with the Fisherman’s Ring at the inaugural Mass. Today he receives something less conspicuous yet perhaps more decisive—the presidency of the college that will elect the next Pope.
Full communiqué of the Holy See Press Office
Resignation of the Dean and approval of the election of the new Dean of the College of Cardinals
The Holy Father has accepted the resignation from the office of Dean of the College of Cardinals presented by His Eminence Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, who assumes the title of Dean Emeritus of the same College and retains the Title of the Suburbicarian Church of Sabina-Poggio Mirteto.
Furthermore, on 8 October 2026, the Roman Pontiff approved the election, made by Their Eminences the Cardinals of the Order of Bishops, of the Dean of the College of Cardinals in the person of His Eminence Cardinal Luis Antonio G. Tagle, Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization in the Section for First Evangelization and New Particular Churches, who will assume the Title of the Suburbicarian Church of Ostia, retaining the Title of the Suburbicarian Church of Albano.