Pope Francis on Saturday created 13 new cardinals — including the first African-American — putting his personal stamp on the body that is to eventually choose his successor.
Under the soaring dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, the new “princes of the Church” knelt one by one at the feet of the 83-year-old pontiff, who placed quadrangular scarlet caps, or birettas, on their heads.
The diverse group — whose members hail from Brunei, Chile, Italy, Malta, Mexico, the Philippines and the US — reflect not only the changing face of the Catholic Church of 1.3 billion faithful, but also the Jesuit pope’s belief in priests focused on the world’s poor.
Photo: AFP
Archbishop of Washington Wilton Gregory, 72, on Friday said that he was a “symbolic individual” for being made the first African-American cardinal.
Since Francis’ election in 2013, the Argentine pope — the first from the Americas — has created 95 new cardinals in ceremonies known as consistories.
Those named by Francis make up the majority of cardinals under the age of 80 who will elect his successor. That increases the chances that the pope’s efforts to make the Church more inclusive, transparent and more focused on defending the most vulnerable members of society might continue after his death.
During the ceremony, Francis told the new cardinals not to be seduced by their new “eminence” and stray from being “close to the people.”
“The scarlet of a cardinal’s robes, which is the color of blood, can, for a worldly spirit, become the color of a secular eminence,” Francis said. “When you feel that, you will be off the road.”
Typically, all the world’s cardinals travel to Rome to welcome the newly promoted cardinals during the consistory.
However, this year many did not attend, and COVID-19 restrictions prevented travel for two new cardinals — Archbishop of Capiz Jose Fuerte Advincula from the Philippines and Vicar Apostolic Cornelius Sim from Muslim-majority Brunei.
Only about 40 current cardinals, all in masks, were in attendance, sitting spaced apart before a limited audience of guests.
Due to COVID-19, the tradition of exchanging “a kiss of peace” with the pope and all the other cardinals was suspended.
Nine cardinals in the latest group are under the age of 80 and are thus eligible to join a conclave to elect the next pope upon the death or resignation of Francis.
Francis’ choices reflect not only a desire to promote non-Europeans within the church, but the pontiff’s personal fight against social inequality and poverty.
Advincula said he believes that the pope chose him to acknowledge Catholics living in far-flung areas from Rome.
“I always thought that the Church has to be closer to the people, especially those that are in the peripheries,” Advincula told Vatican News last month after being named.
The group of cardinals also includes Bishop Emeritus Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel of Mexico, who has worked among the indigenous population of the country’s poor state of Chiapas, and Archbishop of Kigali Antoine Kambanda from Rwanda, who lost most of his family in the 1994 genocide.
Francis also named Archbishop of Santiago Celestino Aos Braco, in a nod to the challenges ahead in restoring confidence in the church in Chile in the aftermath of a widespread sex abuse scandal and cover-up.
The group of six new Italian cardinals includes Archbishop of Siena Augusto Paolo Lojudice, who is known for his defense of Roma people, and the Franciscan priest Mauro Gambetti, guardian of the Holy Convent of Assisi, the city of Saint Francis.
Francis yesterday celebrated a traditional Mass with exclusively the new cardinals participating.
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