ITALY – This week, Pope Francis appointed 14 new cardinals during a ceremony at Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
The cardinals are from 11 different countries. Italy, Spain, Madagascar, Peru, Portugal, Pakistan, Mexico, Bolivia, Japan, Iraq, and Poland are all homes to the newest cardinals.
During a homily, Pope Francis asked the new cardinals to be prudent and avoid “quests of honors, jealousy, envy, intrigue, accommodation and compromise.”
“What does it gain the world if we are living in a stifling atmosphere of intrigues that dry up our hearts and impede our mission?” Pope Francis asked those gathered under the roof of Saint Peter’s. During the ceremony, the pope commented on the amount of “palace intrigues that take place, even in curial offices.”
After the ceremony, the cardinals and Pope Francis caravanned in minivans to the monastery home of Pope Benedict XVI, who retired in 2013. Every one of the cardinals got the chance to speak with Father Benedict, who is now 91 years old.
The list of new cardinals includes:
- His Beatitude, Louis Raphaël I Sako, the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon, Iraq, and leader of the Chaldean Church
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Archbishop Luis Ladaria, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
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Archbishop Angelo De Donatis, Vicar-General of the Diocese of Rome
- Archishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu, “Sostituto” at the Holy See’s Secretary of State and Special Delegate to the Order of Malta
- Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, Papal Almoner
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Archbishop Joseph Coutts of Karachi, Pakistan
- Bishop António dos Santos Marto of Leiria-Fátima, Portugal
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Archbishop Pedro Barreto SJ of Huancayo, Peru
- Archbishop Desiré Tsarahazana of Toamasina, Madagascar
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Archbishop Giuseppe Petrocchi of L’Aquila, Italy
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Archishop Thomas Aquinas Manyo of Osaka, Japan
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Archbishop Sergio Obeso Rivera, Emeritus of Xalapa, Mexico
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Archbishop Toribio Ticona Porco, Prelate Emeritus of Corocoro, Bolivia
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Father Aquilino Bocos Merino, former Superior General of the Claretian missionaries.
Perhaps the duty that cardinals are most well known for within the Catholic Church is their role in the election of a new pope to guide the Catholic Church. Cardinals who are younger than 80 years old gather in a conclave when there is a need to fill the seat of Saint Peter.
11 of the 14 newly-appointed cardinals are under 80 years old.
Three of the newly elected cardinals are over the maximum age of cardinals allowed to participate in the conclave. Archbishop Sergio Obeso Rivera, Archbishop Toribio Ticona Porco, and Father Aquilino Bocos Merino are all over 80 years old.
Including the newest cardinals, there are now 226 cardinals throughout the world. Since the beginning of Pope Francis’s time as the leader of the Catholic Church five years ago, he has appointed 74 cardinals.
