The Pope has created new cardinals who strengthen his line of openness in the Church

During its seventh ordinary session, which strengthens the balance of power in the Church in his favor, Pope Francis created this Saturday nine cardinal electors under the age of 80 who will vote in the future conclave who will elect his successor.

The voters are now 128, of which the Argentine Pope has appointed 73, an absolute majority which ensures the continuity of its pastoral line. The town hall was partially virtual, with an IT platform. Thanks to him, the cardinals who could not reach Rome due to the coronavirus epidemic, which also prevented the travel of two of the new cardinals electors, who were also created by the Pope during the ceremony, have been connected.

They are Archbishop Cornelius Sim, Apostolic Vicar of Brunei, and Archbishop of Capiz, Philippines, Monsignor José Advincula. An envoy from the Pope will hand over both the cap, the ring and the meeting bubble that the new cardinals present have received in the basilica.

The ceremony lasted only 40 minutes and began at 4:00 p.m. local time in Argentina. The cardinals of the old appellation present in the basilica were seated in separate armchairs and they all wore chinstrap. The Pope never used it, while the new cardinals wore it, but they removed it when they bowed down to the pontiff to receive the purple cap, ring and bull of the title that embodies them in a Romanesque church, because in early Christianity , the cardinals the priests of Rome.

In all the brand new cardinals are thirteen years old, four of them over 80 years old, who for reasons of age are excluded from the conclave to be held in the Sistine Chapel after the death or resignation of Jorge Bergoglio.

The eleven new cardinals present at the ceremony they had to comply with a strict quarantine of ten days that guarantees that they are not contaminated with Covid-19.

Airs of renewal

Among the new voters is the American with progressive ideas Wilton gregory, Archbishop of Washington and the first black cardinal in American Church history. Gregory supports Democratic President-elect Joseph “Joe” Biden, who is Catholic, and has repeatedly criticized Conservative President Donald Trump.

Is also Archbishop of Santiago de Chile, the naturalized Chilean Spaniard Celestino Aos Braco, whom the Pope promoted to the most important post in the Chilean Church, after Bergoglio’s trip to Chile in January 2018 pedophilia scandal and other sexual abuses that resulted in the collective resignation of 35 Chilean bishops who had been summoned months later by Francis to the Vatican to examine the grave situation which caused the Trans-Andean Church to lose so much prestige in front of its own faithful.

“I was created a cardinal to restore a Church wounded by aberrant abuses,” said Aos Braco.

Among the nine new electors is also the Bishop of Siena, Augusto Paolo Lojudice, called “the priest of the gypsies”, who ruled over five thousand zíngaros (gypsies) roma and feel at a meeting with the Argentine pope. “The Gospel says that you should get your hands dirty,” says Lojudice, whom the Argentinian pontiff, who has great sympathy, called “a fighting bishop”.

And it is also among the elect the newest youngest cardinal of the Church, Father Mauro Gambetti, 55, guardian of the Sacred Convent of Assisi for eight years. Gambetti was an engineer, he was dating, he was the son of a wealthy family, but he decided to give up everything for his religious vocation. He is the first conventual Franciscan to receive the purple for over a century.

On the list is Antoine Kambaranda, Archbishop of Kigali, the first cardinal of Rwanda, whose entire family was exterminated in the massacre of the civil war that claimed the lives of a million people, including many Catholics.

The other voters are the Maltese General Secretary Mario Grech of the Synod of Bishops, who spoke on behalf of the cardinals created by the Pope, and the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Marcello Semeraro, Italian, who performed in the only moment of suspense because the ring fell off when the Pope put it on.

Bergoglio also created four cardinals over 80, excluded by a rule of Pope Paul VI that does not allow cardinals over the age limit to elect the new pontiff. They are the former nuncio Silvano María Tomasi, the papal preacher Raniere Cantalamessa, the former director of Caritas de Roma, Enrico Feroci and the Mexican Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, bishop emeritus of San Cistobal de las Casas.

Few followers and no hugs

In the huge basilica, the largest Catholic temple in the world, only a hundred worshipers have been admitted, almost all of them accompanying the new cardinals, due to the quarantine restrictions imposed by the Pope on the Vatican due to the pandemic.

Anti-Covid-19 restrictions have eliminated the traditional “heat visits,” currently known as “courtesy,” which are performed on Sundays to freely greet new cardinals.

As well hugs have been eliminated that each new cardinal traditionally play, one by one, with the other cardinals present at the ceremony, in order to avoid contagion.

With the 13 today incorporated in the seventh consistory of Jorge Bergoglio, the Sacred College of Cardinals has 229 members of which 128 are electors. They were created 73 by Francis, 39 by his predecessor Benedict XVI, currently Pope Emeritus, and 16 by John Paul II, who died in 2005 after leading the Church for nearly 27 years.

Of the 128 voters who can consecrate Bergoglio’s successor, 53 are Europeans (22 Italians), 24 Latin Americans, 18 Africans, 16 Asians, 13 North Americans and 4 Oceanians.

Vatican, correspondent

CB