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Vatican City:
Pope Francis on Saturday put in 13 new cardinals, together with the primary African-American to carry the excessive rank, additional increasing the pontiff’s affect on the group that can in the future elect his successor.
The cardinals had been put in in a ceremony, generally known as a consistory, that was markedly slimmed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Instead of the standard hundreds, solely 10 company per cardinal had been allowed in St. Peter’s Basilica because the pope gave the lads their ring and conventional pink hat, generally known as a biretta.
Nine of the 13 are below 80 and eligible below Church regulation to enter a secret conclave to decide on the subsequent pope from amongst themselves after Francis dies or resigns.
It was Francis’ seventh consistory since his election in 2013. He has now appointed 57% of the 128 cardinal electors, most of whom share his imaginative and prescient of a extra inclusive and outward-looking Church.
Thus far, he has appointed 18 cardinals from largely far-flung nations that by no means had one, almost all of them from the creating world. In Saturday’s consistory, Brunei and Rwanda received their first cardinals.
While Europe nonetheless has the most important share of cardinal electors, with 41%, it’s down from 52% in 2013 when Francis turned the primary Latin-American pope.
With every consistory, Francis has elevated the probabilities that his successor shall be one other non-European, having beefed up the Church in locations the place it’s both a tiny minority or the place it’s rising sooner than within the stagnant West.
The 9 new electors come from Italy, Malta, Rwanda, the United States, the Philippines, Chile, Brunei and Mexico.
In his homily, Francis informed the lads to maintain their eyes on God, keep away from all types of corruption, and never succumb to a “worldly spirit” that may accompany the status and energy of their new rank.
Wilton Gregory, the 72-year-old archbishop of Washington, D.C, turns into the primary African-American cardinal at a time the United States is analyzing race relations after a spate of police killings of unarmed Black individuals.
Everyone within the basilica besides the pope wore a masks. Each new cardinal eliminated theirs once they knelt earlier than him to be invested, besides Gregory, who saved it on.
Gregory made headlines in June when he blasted President Donald Trump’s go to to a Catholic shrine in Washington, after police and troopers used tear gasoline and rubber bullets to clear protesters so Trump may very well be photographed in entrance of a historic Washington church holding a Bible.
Gregory stated he discovered it “baffling and reprehensible that any Catholic facility would allow itself to be so egregiously misused and manipulated”.
Catholic conservatives condemned Gregory and sided with Trump.
In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Gregory stated he needed to seek out frequent floor with U.S. President-elect Joe Biden regardless of disagreements on points equivalent to abortion.
Gregory was certainly one of a handful of latest cardinals who had been quarantined for about 10 days of their rooms within the Vatican visitor home the place the pope additionally lives. Cardinals from Brunei and the Philippines couldn’t journey and can obtain their ring and hat from a papal delegate.
Four non-electors over 80 got the honour after a protracted service to the Church. The most distinguished is Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, an Italian-American who has labored all over the world and is likely one of the Church’s high consultants on immigration.
The new cardinals later paid a courtesy go to to 93-year-old former Pope Benedict XVI, who lives on the Vatican grounds.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
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