David: Not a Prince, but a servant of God

Kalookan Bishop Pablo Virgilio Cardinal David, the first Filipino non-archbishop and the first from his diocese of Kalookan to be elevated by Pope Francis to the Sacred College of Cardinals, will celebrate today a thanksgiving Holy Mass, his first since the Holy Father placed the traditional red biretta upon his head during a public consistory for the creation of new cardinals at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican a week ago, on 7 December 2024.

In the past, David would have been likewise called a “Prince of the Church,” a historical reference to cardinals of the Catholic Church who, in feudal times, were ecclesiastical equivalents of princes who ruled principalities.

The current head of the Holy See, however, would have none of that. Pope Francis has expressed disdain for such a title, declaring that his appointed cardinals are not to be called “princes of the Church” because, to his mind, they have been called to serve the people of God and “tackle the sins of the world.”

David holds a similar view of the matter, telling his confreres at the CBCP that he is “honestly scandalized by that, it’s one of the things that I wish would be gone from the Church,” that is, cardinals being conferred princely status and addressed as “Your Eminence,” a title instituted by Pope Urban VIII in the 1600s.

The Kalookan bishop and current president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines was in Rome on 6 October as head of the country’s delegation to the month-long Synod on Synodality where hundreds of delegates ‑— clerics and laymen — were gathered to ponder and seek ways to resolve various contentious issues plaguing the Church when the Pope announced his appointment as cardinal.

He was taking a brief break from the Synod sessions at the Pontifico Collegio Filippino where Filipino priests in Rome stay when the procurator of the place congratulated him. He asked, “For what?”

David thought it was a joke when he was told that the Pope, following his weekly Angelus prayers from the papal apartments overlooking St. Peter’s Square, mentioned his name among his 21 appointed new cardinals.

Realizing it wasn’t, all that David could say was, “Okay, Lord, my life is in Your hands.”

The 10th Filipino cardinal since Rufino Cardinal Santos was named in 1960, David was trained as a Biblical scholar overseas, with a doctorate in theology from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. He had also attended the Jesuit’s San Jose Seminary at the Ateneo de Manila University.

He was among the country’s staunchest defenders of human rights during the bloody war on drugs waged by former President Rodrigo Duterte.

Now, as a cardinal, David is not only among the Pope’s closest advisers but will be among those who will elect the Pope’s successor.

David will be one of three active Filipino cardinals below the age of 80 that will take part in a conclave, or papal election (the two others are Luis Antonio Tagle and Jose Advincula who took Tagle’s place as archbishop of the city of Manila).

What makes David’s elevation to cardinal by Pope Francis significant? Well, consider the fact that currently, there are only 235 cardinals among some 1.5-billion members of the Roman Catholic Church.

And of these 235 cardinals, only 122 are cardinal electors, that is, those who have been named to elect the Pope’s successor when he vacates the Papacy, either through resignation or death.

There is, too, apparent awareness by the Vatican of David’s contributions to the Philippine Catholic Church, particularly in terms of his service to his flock in the diocese of Kalookan and his work as head of the CBCP and in the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences.

David’s being named a cardinal is in recognition by the Pope of his track record as a defender of human rights which, at one point, led to his being accused of sedition, among other charges that were all later dropped for lack of evidence.

In 2017, David buried Kian Loyd de los Santos, a resident of Kalookan who was among the thousands slain by the police during Duterte’s drug war.

David himself was a recipient of a number of death threats for his scathing criticism of the way the past dispensation conducted its bloody drug war whose victims included thousands from his diocese. But such threats to his life were something he has calmly accepted.

As the new cardinal put it, “We don’t want to die or become a martyr. But we will not run away from danger. If I am afraid to die, then I should not have become a bishop in the first place. I should not have accepted this title if I am not ready to protect my flock.”