adminPope Francis promoted 21 clergymen from various parts of the world to the rank of cardinal on Saturday, saying diversity was critical to the Catholic Church’s survival.
Under beautiful skies and in front of a crowd that filled half of Vatican City’s majestic, colonnaded St Peter’s Square, the 86-year-old pope greeted the new “Princes of the Church,” one of whom could one day succeed the present pontiff.
“The College of Cardinals is called to resemble a symphony orchestra, representing the harmony and synodality of the Church,” said Francis, seated under a canopy before the gathered cardinals on the steps of St Peter’s Basilica.
“Diversity is necessary; it is indispensable. However, each sound must contribute to the common design,” said the Argentine Jesuit.
The selection of the new cardinals, who include diplomats, close advisers, and administrators, is keenly observed as a reflection of the Church’s goals and position.
One of them may also be picked by his peers to follow Francis, who has indicated that he may stand down in the future if his health warrants it.
The ceremony on Saturday, known as a consistory, is the eighth since Francis was appointed head of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics in 2013.
The scarlet-clad cardinals bowed before the pope, who conferred upon them the two insignia of their high office: a biretta, a scarlet four-cornered cap, and a cardinal’s ring.
To some, a happy face As he shook their hands, Francis exclaimed an encouraging “Bravo!” or “Courage!”
Eighteen of the 21 newly appointed cardinals are under the age of 80, making them eligible to vote as “cardinal electors” in the next conclave, which will determine Francis’ successor.
They are among the 99 cardinal-electors appointed by Francis, accounting for almost three-quarters of the total.
This has fueled conjecture that the Church’s next spiritual leader will be modeled after Francis, preaching a more tolerant Church with a greater emphasis on the poor and marginalized.
Throughout his papacy, Francis has sought to create a more inclusive, universal Church, looking past Europe to clergy in Africa, Asia and Latin America to fill the Church’s highest ranks.
With his latest roster of cardinals, Francis has again looked to the world’s “peripheries” where Catholicism is growing while breaking with the practice of promoting archbishops of large, powerful dioceses.
“He is looking for cardinals who correspond to the times. These are people who have all taken a step away from the Church of the past, who positively ensure a break,” an informed observer of the Holy See who asked to remain nameless told AFP ahead of the ceremony.
The array of cardinals represent “a richness and a variety of experience, and that’s what the Church is all about,” the Archbishop of Cape Town, Stephen Brislin, told AFP Thursday before his elevation to cardinal.
“The Church encompasses all people, not just a certain group of people,” he said.
There are three new cardinals from South America, including two Argentinians, and three from Africa, with the promotion of the archbishops of Juba in South Sudan, Tabora in Tanzania, and Cape Town’s Brislin.
Asia is represented by the Bishop of Penang in Malaysia and the Bishop of Hong Kong, Stephen Chow, who is seen as playing a key role in seeking to improve tense relations between the Vatican and Beijing.
Some of the new cardinals, like Chow, have experience in sensitive zones of the world where the Holy See hopes to play an important diplomatic role.
The list includes the Holy Land’s top Catholic authority, Italian Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the first seated Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem to be made cardinal.
“Jerusalem is a small laboratory, interreligious and intercultural, and that’s a challenge that the whole world is facing at this point,” Pizzaballa told AFP.
The apostolic nuncio, or ambassador, to the United States, France’s Christophe Pierre, whose decades-long diplomatic career includes appointments in Haiti, Uganda, and Mexico, was also promoted.
Francis also appointed top executives in the Holy See’s government, the Curia.
Claudio Gugerotti, the Italian prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches; Argentina’s Victor Manuel Fernandez, whom Francis recently named head of the powerful Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith; and Chicago-born Robert Prevost, a former Peruvian missionary who leads the Dicastery for Bishops, are among his new choices.
Following the event, members of the public applauded the new cardinals at the Vatican’s opulent Apostolic Palace.
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