Francis names 20 new cardinals, including a Spaniard, in a ceremony that starts four days and could mark the future of the church
With the consistory he presided over this Saturday, in which he created 20 new cardinals, including Spaniard Fernando Vérgez, chairman of the Pontifical Commission for the State of Vatican City, Pope Francis kicked off four days of significant events that could mark the future. of the Catholic Church in the coming years. The first was the massive ceremony held at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, which increased the number of members of the College of Cardinals to 226, 132 of whom were under the age of 80, and therefore could participate in a possible conclave to establish a elect a new pope.
In these nearly ten years of pontificate, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has appointed 112 cardinals, shaping the assembly that will have to choose his successor. They represent a large majority compared to the living voters who received the cardinal’s hat from John Paul II (11) and Benedict XVI (38). With the eight consistories he has chaired, none of which had so far taken place in August, the Argentine Pope has also imposed a new geographical balance in the College of Cardinals: Europeans have reduced their weight, although they still make up the majority ( 40%), while the representatives of small or minority churches in Asia and Africa are increasing.
This is what has happened to some of the new cardinals, such as the Indian Filipe Neri António Sebastião do Rosário Ferrão, Archbishop of Goa and Damão; the Salesian Virgilio do Carmo da Silva, Archbishop of Dili and first cardinal in the history of East Timor; and Giorgio Marengo, Apostolic Prefect of Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia). This 48-year-old missionary is the youngest member of the College of Cardinals. They also received the biretta and ring identifying the so-called ecclesiastical “princes of the church” of Singapore, Nigeria, South Korea, Paraguay, Colombia and Brazil, among others. In contrast, Ghanaian Richard Kuuia Baawobr, bishop of Wa, was unable to participate in the ceremony, which had to be hospitalized after arriving in Rome due to heart problems.
The new cardinals were invited by Francis to accompany him on the short journey he will make this Sunday to L’Aquila, the city in central Italy, where he will visit the tomb of Celestine V, a pope who went down in history because he resigned from the pontificate at the end of the thirteenth century. The announcement of this move last spring, along with the serious mobility problems Bergoglio then faced, led to the proliferation of rumors in the Vatican of a presumed intention to leave the papal throne. Contributing to these speculations was the fact that Benedict XVI also visited Celestine V’s tomb in 2009, four years before his resignation from the pontificate.
Francisco himself has been in charge of denying the rumors of his hypothetical desire to soon follow in his predecessor’s footsteps. He has acknowledged that he has no intention of becoming pope emeritus “for now”, and also clarified that if at any point he feels “the Lord is asking him” to step down, he would not continue to live in the Vatican. The ecclesiastical analyzes of his intention to pave the way for a new phase in the Catholic Church have also been furthered by the meeting convened in the Vatican on Monday and Tuesday, in which nearly 200 cardinals, Eastern Patriarchs and Superiors of the Secretariat of State, the most important organ in the government of the Holy See.
The official purpose of the meeting is to present the apostolic constitution ‘Praedicate Evangelium’, which came into effect in early June and culminated the Pope’s reorganization of the Roman Curia. During these two days of meetings, the reform of the Vatican finances and the steps forward against pederasty will also be discussed, two of the biggest headaches for the Church in recent decades, although no one is aware that the appointment will serve so that the faces can be seen and those responsible for electing a new pope can speak freely. Today in Rome there will also be gatherings in the homes of cardinals and the lunches and dinners of cardinals in discreet restaurants in the Vatican, where the winds of a future conclave seem to be blowing.
With the appointment as cardinal of Fernando Vérgez, a member of the Legionnaires of Christ and chairman of the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City, which effectively makes him the ‘mayor’ of the smallest state in the world, Spain has 12 cardinals, half of whom was allowed to participate in a possible conclave for not being older than 80 years. Three other cardinals at the head of the dioceses of Chile, Morocco and Panama are also of Spanish descent. Our country is the third ‘power’ of the College of Cardinals behind Italy (48) and the United States (16). It is striking that in each of the eight consistories chaired by Jorge Mario Bergoglio, at least one Spanish cleric received the cardinal’s hat and ring.
At the ceremony this Saturday, the government of Pedro Sánchez was represented by the Presidency Minister Félix Bolaños, in charge of Church-State relations, and by the Ambassador to the Holy See, Isabel Celaá from Bilbao. Before the Church Council celebration, Vérgez believed that the profusion of Spaniards in the College of Cardinals “is a recognition of the vitality of the Church in Spain and the role she has played and has played in evangelization.” This religious, born 77 years ago in Salamanca, explained that creation as a cardinal does not involve a “prize”, as it is “a call to service” to “become an ever closer collaborator with the Pope”. Right during the consistory, Francis invited the new cardinals to “love the Church” and deal with “the big questions as well as the smaller” with the same interest, asking them in particular not to “love the poor or the migrants”. to forget.
Source: La Verdad
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