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ROME — Pope Francis introduced Sunday that he would create 21 new cardinals in August, deciding on clerics from all corners of the world to bolster the church’s world attain, as he has performed with previous decisions to the rank of cardinal.
“Let us pray for the new cardinals, that by confirming their adherence to Christ, they will help me in my ministry as bishop of Rome for the good of all God’s faithful,” Francis mentioned Sunday after giving the names of the soon-to-be cardinals on the finish of his conventional greetings to hundreds of Roman Catholic trustworthy in St. Peter’s Square.
The checklist of recent “princes of the church,” as cardinals are referred to as, contains prelates from Brazil, East Timor, Ghana, India, Nigeria, (*21*), Singapore and South Korea, denoting a deliberate shift away from Europe, the cradle of cardinals for hundreds of years. Eight Europeans did make the checklist, although solely 4 are eligible to vote for Francis’ successor, whereas the one North American is Msgr. Robert McElroy, a bishop from San Diego.
The College of Cardinals is chargeable for the election of a pope, and its composition naturally impacts the collection of future pontiffs. This is the ninth set of cardinals that Francis has tipped for a “red hat,” and of the 21 males, 16 are beneath 80, the cutoff age to vote on a brand new pope as soon as Francis dies or retires. Five of his picks are too previous to vote, together with three from Italy, one from Belgium and one from Colombia.
In the Nineteen Seventies, Pope Paul VI set a restrict capping the variety of cardinals who might vote for a brand new pope at 120. That didn’t deter Pope John Paul II from exceeding that restrict in 2001, although the quantity was again all the way down to 115 by the point he died in 2005.
Francis has promoted a pastoral imaginative and prescient of the Roman Catholic Church, one which nurtures mercy and inclusion and reaches out to the poor and the marginalized, together with those that are additionally essentially the most susceptible to the affect of local weather change, one other of the pope’s considerations.
After the consistory — because the ceremony to put in the brand new cardinals is thought — on Aug. 27, Francis may have appointed 83 of the longer term cardinal electors, growing the chance that his successor will mirror not less than elements of that imaginative and prescient. Of the remaining 50 cardinals, 12 have been appointed by John Paul II and 38 by Benedict, in response to Vatican statistics.
On the checklist of recent cardinals are Archbishop Arthur Roche of Britain, who final May changed Cardinal Robert Sarah as head of the Vatican’s liturgy workplace; Bishop Lazarus You Heung-sik of South Korea, who was appointed head of the Vatican’s clergy workplace final June; and Archbishop Fernando Vérgez Alzaga of Spain, who governs the Vatican City-State. There can be a missionary priest, the Italian-born Bishop Giorgio Marengo, at present apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, who at 48 would be the youngest member of the College of Cardinals.
In making his alternatives, now and in earlier consistories, Francis has been upending centuries of custom by selecting cardinals from cities which have by no means earlier than had cardinals. It was once that changing into archbishop of a significant metropolis like Venice, Milan, Los Angeles or Philadelphia, was an virtually sure steppingstone to changing into a cardinal. Currently not one of the archbishops of those cities are cardinals.
“That just isn’t the pattern anymore with Francis; he appoints people from places that never had cardinals before, and that is revolutionary,” the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior analyst for Religion News Service who has written books concerning the Roman Catholic hierarchy, mentioned in a phone interview. “He looks for the person that he thinks will contribute the best to the church and that supports his vision of where the church should go.”
On Sunday, Francis named prelates from far-flung locations, together with the Franciscan archbishop of Manaus, Brazil, Leonardo Ulrich Steiner; Peter Ebere Okpaleke, who in 2020 grew to become the primary bishop of Ekwulobia, a brand new diocese in Nigeria; and Filipe Neri António Sebastião do Rosário Ferrão, archbishop of Goa and Daman, India.
Bishop McElroy would be the first cardinal for the Diocese of San Diego and is a longtime supporter of Francis’ pastoral agenda, in response to Catholic media. He has additionally expressed help for permitting girls to be deacons and for improved ministry towards gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender individuals.
Two years in the past, Francis made Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of Washington, a cardinal, elevating the primary African American to the College of Cardinals
On Sunday, Francis additionally introduced that he would convene the entire church’s cardinals on Aug. 29 and 30 to “reflect on” the structure that he launched this yr to manipulate the forms that runs the Roman Catholic Church.
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