Cebu Archbishop Emeritus Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, one of the Philippines’ most influential Catholic Church leaders, died this morning.
Vidal, who was 86 at the time of his death, had been confined at the Perpetual Succor Hospital in Cebu City since last week due to complications from pneumonia.
Msgr. Joseph Tan, spokesperson of the Cebu archdiocese, told DZMM radio that Vidal died in the intensive care unit this morning at 7:28am.
Vidal served as archbishop of Cebu for nearly three decades before he retired in 2011.
The influential church leader was an instrumental figure in the 1986 EDSA Revolution that ended the 20-year dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.
“According to moral principles, a government that assumes or retains power through fraudulent means has no moral basis,” Vidal, who was then vice president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, wrote in an open letter, questioning the results of the 1986 snap election. But it would be the late Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin who would ask people to gather in EDSA to call for Marcos’ resignation.
Vidal was the oldest of the four cardinals in the Philippines. The other cardinals are Manila Archbishop Emeritus Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, and Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Cardinal Quevedo.
In June 2016, Vidal paid President Rodrigo Duterte a courtesy call, a move the former archbishop said he considered a door that could open communications between the Catholic Church and the government.
with reports from ABS-CBN News
