The pope announces that he will name 13 new cardinals …

Pope Francis announced on Sunday the appointment (the "creation" in the ecclesiastical language) of thirteen new cardinals, ten of whom will be voters in a future conclave from which the future successor of Jorge Bergoglio will emerge at the head of the 39 Catholic Church. Faithful to his style and his strategic outlook, the pope made this announcement in a surprising way after the Sunday prayer to Angelus, and insisted that it deepen the "internationalization" of Cardinal College , affirming the representation of all continents and pursuing the decision to reduce the weight of Europeans.

Among the new cardinals, which will be officially created on October 5, during the celebration of the conclave, there is a Cuban and a Guatemalan. This will be the sixth session convened by Francisco, almost one per year. Of the last three Catholic pontiffs, Bergoglio is the pope who has designated the largest number of cardinal electors: 67 taking into account the new ad

With these designations in a possible conclave, more than half of the cardinal electors (under the age of eighty and eligible to vote) will have been appointed by Francisco.

Among the incorporations, the cardinal school will be composed of 229 cardinals, of which 128 would be able to choose a new pope because they are less than 80 years old. The remaining 101 participate in the deliberations and have an impact on the orientations of the Church but do not include the group of those who pay to select the successor of the Apostle Peter. Of these, 43 are Latin American but only 23 are able to be voters.

The new cardinals with the possibility of voting a new pope are:

• Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, (67 years old, Spain).

• José Tolentino Mendoça, librarian of the Church of the Holy Roman Empire, (53 years old, Portugal).

• Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo, Archbishop of Jakarta (69, Indonesia).

• Juan de la Caridad García Rodríguez, Archbishop of San Cristóbal de La Habana (71 years old, Cuba).

• Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, O.F.M. Cap, Archbishop of Kinshasa (59, Democratic Republic of Congo).

• Jean-Claude Höllerich, SJ, Archbishop of Luxembourg (61 years).

• Alvaro L. Ramazzini Imeri, Bishop of Huehuetenamgo (72 years old, Guatemala).

• Matteo Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna (63 years old, Italy).

• Cristóbal López Romero, Sdb, Archbishop of Rabat (67 years old, Morocco).

• Michael Czerny, Sj, Undersecretary of the Migration Section of the Department of Integral Human Development (73 years, Czech Republic – Canada).

In the new conclave, Europe continues to lose its weight, while the origins of different regions of the world increases regional diversity and Francisco describes a cardinal school that pursues its apostolic perspective in which is noted the representation of geographical "peripheries", but also social. An African, Fridolin Ambongo Besungu, Archbishop of Kinshasa, Congo; and an Asian, Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo, archbishop of Jakarta, Indonesia, will receive the mortar and symbols of the cardinal condition.

The three new cardinals who will not have a voice or vote on the conclave are Michael Louis Fitzgerald, Archbishop Emeritus of Nepte; Sigitas Tamkevicius, archbishop emeritus of Kaunas and Eugenio Dal Corso, emeritus bishop of Benguela.

The Spanish Bishop Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, head of the Vatican Interreligious Dialogue, is one of the Pope's designations that also helps to read the importance that Francisco attaches to this task in his pastoral strategy. Similarly, the appointment of Canadian Michael Czerny, Undersecretary of the Migration and Refugees Section of the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development, directly responsible for the issue of migrants in the world, to which Francisco also attributes a large part your worries

In making this announcement, the pope justified the election of new electors who "express, by their origin, the missionary vocation of the Church which continues to proclaim the merciful love of God to all people. men of the earth ". And regarding the non-voters, he added that they had been appointed for "their service within the Church".

Among the nominated personalities is the Italian bishop Eugenio Dal Corso, who was a missionary in Argentina and worked for eleven years in Laferrere, in the province of Buenos Aires. He then continued his missionary work alongside the poor people of Luanda and Angola.

"Let us pray for the new cardinals, so that, confirming their adherence to Christ, they will help me in my ministry of bishop of Rome for the good of all the faithful people of God," said the pope during the meeting. the closing of the announcement.