Monday, October 07, 2024 - Pope Francis named 21 new cardinals Sunday, October 6, significantly increasing the size of the College of Cardinals and further cementing his mark on the group of prelates who will one day elect his successor.
Among those named by history’s first Latin American pope were
the heads of several major dioceses and archdioceses in South America. They
include the heads of the Catholic Church in Santiago del Estero, Argentina;
Porto Alegre, Brazil; Santiago, Chile; Guayaquil, Ecuador; and Lima, Peru.
The new cardinals will get their red hats at a ceremony,
known as a consistory, on Dec. 8, an important feast day on its own that
officially kicks off the Christmas season in Rome.
Even before Sunday’s announcement, Francis had already named
the vast majority of the voting-age cardinals who will one day vote in a
conclave to choose his successor. According to Vatican statistics, before
Sunday, 92 of the cardinals under 80 — and thus eligible to vote in a conclave
— had been named by Francis, compared with 24 named by Pope Benedict XVI and
six by St. John Paul II.
Added to their ranks on Sunday were two Vatican officials who
hold positions that don’t usually carry with them a cardinal’s rank: the
official in charge of the migrants section of the Vatican development office,
the Rev. Fabio Baggio, and the official who organizes the pope’s foreign
travels, the Rev. George Jacob Koovakad.
Among those named were the heads of several major dioceses
and archdioceses in South America. They are 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 contrast to the lone new cardinal from
North America: the archbishop of Toronto, Francis Leo.
Francis also tapped the archbishop of Tehran, Iran, Monsignor
Dominique Joseph Mathieu, and the bishop of Bogor, Indonesia, Monsignor
Paskalis Bruno Syukor. They both belong to the Franciscan religious order and
are two of the four new Franciscan cardinals.
In addition to Syukor, Asia gets two more cardinals in
Monsignor Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, the archbishop of Tokyo; and Monsignor Pablo
Virgilio Sinogco David, the bishop of Kalookan, Philippines.
Aside from Asia, Africa got two new cardinals: the archbishop
of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Monsignor Ignace Bessi Dogbo, and the bishop of
Algiers, Algeria, Monsignor Jean-Paul Vesco.
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