Pope Francis names 21 new cardinals, significantly increasing the pool who will one day elect his successor

ROME — Pope Francis named 21 new cardinals Sunday, considerably rising the scale of the School of Cardinals and additional cementing his mark on the group of prelates who will at some point elect his successor.

They embrace a person who would be the oldest cardinal — Monsignor Angelo Acerbi, a 99-year-old retired Vatican diplomat who was as soon as held hostage for six weeks in Colombia by leftist guerrillas — and the youngest — the 44-year-old head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Melbourne, Australia, Bishop Mykola Bychok, named in a nod to the continuing conflict in Ukraine.

The brand new cardinals will get their purple hats at a ceremony, often called a consistory, on Dec. 8, an necessary feast day by itself that formally kicks off the Christmas season in Rome. It is going to be Francis’ tenth consistory to create new princes of the church and the most important infusion of voting-age cardinals into the faculty in Francis’ 11-year preach. Acerbi is the one one of many new consumption who’s over 80 and therefore too previous to vote for brand new pope.

Normally the faculty has a restrict of 120 on voting-age cardinals however popes usually exceed the cap briefly to maintain the physique strong as present cardinals age out. As of Sept. 28, there have been 122 cardinal-electors; meaning the brand new infusion brings their numbers as much as 142.

Amongst these named by historical past’s first Latin American pope have been the heads of a number of main dioceses and archdioceses in South America. They’re the archbishop of Santiago del Estero, Argentina, Vicente Bokalic Iglic; the archbishop of Porto Alegre, Brazil, Jaime Spengler; the archbishop of Santiago, Chile, Fernando Natalio Chomali Garib; the archbishop of Guayaquil, Ecuador, Luis Gerardo Cabrera Herrera; and the archbishop of Lima, Peru, Carlos Gustavo Castillo Mattasoglio.

That stands in sharp distinction to the lone new cardinal from North America: the archbishop of Toronto, Francis Leo.

Exhibiting the universality of the church world wide, Francis additionally tapped the archbishop of Tehran, Iran, Monsignor Dominique Joseph Mathieu, and the bishop of Bogor, Indonesia, Monsignor Paskalis Bruno Syukor. They each belong to the Franciscan spiritual order and are two of the 4 new Franciscan cardinals.

Along with Syukor, Asia will get two extra cardinals in Monsignor Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, the archbishop of Tokyo; and Monsignor Pablo Virgilio Sinogco David, the bishop of Kalookan, Philippines.

Except for Asia the opposite area the place the church is rising is Africa, which bought two new cardinals: the archbishop of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Monsignor Ignace Bessi Dogbo, and the bishop of Algiers, Algeria, Monsignor Jean-Paul Vesco.

“Francis has once more continued to increase the attain of the faculty of cardinals,” mentioned Christopher Bellitto, a church historian at Kean College in Union, New Jersey. “Like his predecessors, however much more so, he’s ensuring that Catholic leaders from the church’s edges have a voice on the huge desk.”

Even earlier than Sunday’s announcement, Francis had already named the overwhelming majority of the voting-age cardinals who will at some point vote in a conclave. Based on Vatican statistics, earlier than Sunday, 92 of the cardinals below 80 had been named by Francis, in contrast with 24 named by Pope Benedict XVI and 6 by St. John Paul II.

Added to their ranks on Sunday have been two Vatican officers who maintain positions that don’t normally carry with them a cardinal’s rank: the official in command of the migrants part of the Vatican growth workplace, the Rev. Fabio Baggio, and the official who organizes the pope’s international travels, the Rev. George Jacob Koovakad.