The first flurry of texts came through only a few days after the news of Pope Francis’s death: “Are we getting a Filipino in the Vatican?!,” a few friends messaged excitedly. While I am—to put it generously—a lapsed Catholic, those close to me know that I remain enthralled by the spectacle of a papal conclave. Sequestered inside the Sistine Chapel! Smoke signals! Special outfits! It’s no wonder Conclave enraptured so many of us: if the traditions depicted in the film hadn’t been already documented for centuries, you would swear it was all Hollywood magic.

But the fervor from my friends could be attributed to more than just the impending papal vote. For the first time in church history, a Filipino, Cardinal Luis Tagle, is a frontrunner for the highest office in all of Roman Catholicism, a denomination that counts approximately 1.4 billion people among its faithful. Electing Tagle (pronounced TAG-leh) would install the first Asian pontiff in modern times, and only the second born outside of Europe (with Francis, raised in Buenos Aires, being the first). If, when the white smoke blooms in St. Peter’s, it’s this 67-year-old prelate who assumes the papacy, it’s hard to overestimate what the reaction would be in the Philippines, where my father grew up: I imagine something akin to if Taylor Swift had a concert on the moon, and the whole country was invited. Because, if you’ve met a Filipino, you’ve probably met a Catholic—even if, like me, they haven’t seen the inside of a church for years. (Please don’t tell my titas.)

The Roman Catholic Church has had an outsize impact on this archipelago nation: 80% of the country identifies as such, a vestige of the Spanish colonial rule that lasted for nearly three centuries. Today, the Philippines has the largest Catholic population in all of Asia, plus five members in the College of Cardinals, which might be enough of a voting bloc to sway others in Tagle’s direction. While we’ll have to wait until the end of the conclave—which begins today in Vatican City—to find out, the immense swelling of cultural pride for Chito, as the Cardinal prefers to be called, has been thrilling to take part in.

As any Filipino can attest, we are almost comically proud when one of our own garners attention in any field, however dubious (looking at you, Manny Pacquiao). And perhaps the only category that would instill more national pride than a pop star (hi, Olivia Rodrigo) would be a pope. Thankfully, Tagle’s values follow mostly in his predecessor Francis’s reformist footsteps: he is known for his work with the poor, he is outspoken against climate change, and he’s called for the Church to change its judgmental attitudes towards single mothers, divorcees, and the queer community.