ROME, Italy. — This Sunday, Pope Francis announced the names of 21 new cardinals, which considerably increased the number of members of the College of Cardinals and consolidates his mark on the group of prelates who will one day elect his successor.
Among those chosen by the first Latin American pope in history were the leaders of several important dioceses and archdioceses in South America. This is the archbishop of Santiago del Estero, Argentina, Vicente Bokalic Iglic; the archbishop of Porto Alegre, Brazil, Jaime Spengler; the archbishop of Santiago de Chile, Fernando Natalio Chomali Garib; the archbishop of Guayaquil, Ecuador, Luis Gerardo Cabrera Herrera; and the archbishop of Lima, Peru, Carlos Gustavo Castillo Mattasoglio.
He also named the oldest cardinal yet: Monsignor Angelo Acerbi, a 99-year-old retired Vatican diplomat who was once held hostage for six weeks in Colombia by leftist guerrillas, and the youngest, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. 44-year-old in Melbourne, Australia, Bishop Mykola Bychok, named in a nod to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The new cardinals will assume their positions in the consistory that will be held on December 8, an important holiday that officially begins the Christmas celebrations in Rome. It will be the tenth consistory that Pope Francis will lead and the largest infusion of cardinals of voting age into the college in his 11 years of pontificate.
Already before Sunday’s announcement, the holy father had named the vast majority of cardinals of voting age who will one day participate in a conclave to elect his successor.
According to Vatican statistics, before Sunday 92 of the cardinals under the age of 80 — and therefore eligible to vote in a conclave — had been chosen by the bishop of Rome, compared to 24 appointed by Pope Benedict XVI and six by Saint John Paul II.
Showing the universality of the Church throughout the world, Peter’s successor also turned to the Archbishop of Tehran, Iran, Monsignor Dominique Joseph Mathieu, and the Bishop of Bogor, Indonesia, Monsignor Paskalis Bruno Syukor. Both belong to the Franciscan religious order and are two of the four new Franciscan cardinals. He also appointed the Archbishop of Toronto, Francis Leo.
In addition to Syukor, Asia has two more cardinals: Monsignor Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, archbishop of Tokyo; and Monsignor Pablo Virgilio Sinogco David, bishop of Kalookan, Philippines.
Aside from Asia, the other region where the Church is growing is Africa, which has two new cardinals: the archbishop of Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Monsignor Ignace Bessi Dogbo, and the bishop of Algiers, Algeria, Monsignor Jean-Paul Vesco.
In a gesture to the synod being held this month at the Vatican that is debating the future of the Church, Pope Francis also named the Rev. Timothy Racliffe, a British theologian who is one of the meeting’s spiritual advisors.
___Associated Press religion coverage is supported through AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from the Lilly Endowment Inc. AP is responsible for its content.
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