Pope chooses 21 new cardinals [News/Analysis]
October 07, 2024
Pope Francis has announced a consistory on December 8 at which he will confer red hats on 21 new members of the College of Cardinals. “Their origins,” the Pope said, “express the universality of the Church.”With these new appointments, Pope Francis will have named 142 cardinals, including 111 of those who will be eligible to vote in a papal conclave: 79% of the voters.
In keeping with his pattern of previous appointments, the Pope has chosen many new cardinals from countries that were once mission territories, further weakening the European influence in the College. However he named only one new cardinal from sub-Saharan Africa, the region where the Catholic faith is growing fastest. In contrast, five are from South America.
Again following his usual practice the Pope has chosen several cardinals who have worked closely with him, and has passed over the heads of large archdioceses to select bishops— and in two cases, non-bishops— who fit his own criteria.
Perhaps the most noteworthy name on the Pope’s list is that of the controversial Dominican theologian, Father Timothy Radcliffe, who has frequently argued for a more welcoming Catholic approach to homosexuals, and was chosen by the Pontiff to lead the spiritual retreat that began the current Synod of Synodality.
The most noteworthy omission from the list made public on October 6 was Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles. As an immigrant from Mexico who now leads the largest archdiocese in the US, Archbishop Gomez would seem a natural candidate for a red hat. Yet he was passed over again, while San Diego’s Cardinal Robert McElroy, a close ally of Pope Francis, is within his metropolitan region.
No prelate from the US was on the Pope’s list, although Archbishop Francis Leo of Toronto was chosen. Three of the new cardinals will come from the Roman Curia. With the elevation of Father Radcliffe, England will boast four cardinals: the most in the country’s history.
Barring a death or resignation from the College, there will be 141 cardinal-electors after the December consistory. Pope John Paul II set the upper limit for the number of electors at 120, but both he and Pope Francis have exceeded the limit in the past, and now Pope Francis has shattered the ceiling.
The Pope’s choices are:
- Archbishop Angelo Acerbi, a retired veteran of the Vatican diplomatic corps. At the age of 99, he is the only member of this consistory class who will not be eligible to vote in a conclave. The most dramatic episode in the archbishop’s diplomatic career came when, as papal nuncio in Colombia, he was held hostage by rebel guerrillas for two months.
- Father Fabio Baggio, the undersecretary of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, responsible for working with migrants. His appointment underlines the high priority that the Pope gives to that work.
- Archbishop Ignace Bessi Dogbo of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, the only prelate from sub-Saharan Africa on the list.
- Archbishop Vicente Bokalic Iglic of Santiago del Este, Argentina. Once an auxiliary bishop under then-Cardinal Bergoglio, he has name been named the Primate of Argentina.
- Bishop Mykola Bychok of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Sts. Peter and Paul in Melbourne, Australia. At the age of only 44 he will be the youngest member of the College.
- Archbishop Luis Gerardo Cabrera Herrera of Guayaquil, Ecuador.
- Archbishop Gustavo Castillo Mattasoglio of Lima, Peru.
- Archbishop Fernando Natalio Chomali Garib of Santiago de Chile, Chile.
- Archbishop Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo.
- Msgr. George Jacob Koovakad, an official of the Secretariat of State responsible for papal travel. Msgr. Koovakad is a priest of the Syro-Malabar Church, perhaps the largest of the Eastern churches in full communion with Rome. But the leader of the Syro-Malabar Church, Major Archbishop Raphael Tattil, is not a cardinal.
- Archbishop Francis Leo of Toronto.
- Archbishop Rolandas Makrickas, the Lithuanian coadjutor archpriest of the basilica of St. Mary Major.
- Archbishop Dominique Mathieu, a Belgian Franciscan, the Archbishop of Teheran, Iran.
- Archbishop Ladislav Nemet of Beograd-Smederevo, Serbia.
- Father Timothy Radcliffe.
- Bishop Baldassare Reina, an auxiliary— and now vicar general— of the Rome diocese.
- Archbishop Roberto Repole of Turin, Italy.
- Bishop Pablo Virgilio Siongco David of Kalookan, the Philippines, a critic of that country’s President Rodrigo Duarte.
- Archbishop Jaime Spengler of Porto Alegre, Brazil, a Franciscan and president of the Latin American bishops’ conference CELAM.
- Bishop Paskalis Syukur of Bogor, Indonesia, the secretary-general of the episcopal conference that hosted Pope Francis on his recent visit there.
- Archbishop Jean-Paul Vesco of Alger, Algeria.
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