Pope Francis has appointed Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila as the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
The appointment was announced in Rome on Sunday.
Tagle will replace Cardinal Fernando Filoni, who assumed the position of Grand Master of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher.
Tagle is the second Asian cardinal to lead the department for evangelization after Indian Cardinal Ivan Dias, who served the post from 2006 to 2011.
Born in Manila in 1957, Tagle was ordained priest for the Imus diocese in 1982.
From 1985 to 1992, he was sent to further studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. where he got his Doctorate in Sacred Theology.
He also spent seven years in Rome to deepen his studies and in 1997 joined the International Theological Commission.
He was named bishop of the diocese by Saint John Paul II in October 2001.
Tagle has participated in 1998, 2005, 2008 and 2012 synods at the Vatican. In 2014, he was one of the three presidents of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family.
The cardinal is set to be installed at his new post in the Vatican at the beginning of 2020, according to Vatican News.