By Joshua McElwee
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -Pope Francis will appoint 21 new cardinals from around the globe, he introduced on Sunday, in an sudden push to affect the highly effective group of churchmen that can someday select his successor.
The ceremony to put in the brand new appointees, referred to as a consistory, shall be held on Dec. 8, the 87-year-old pope mentioned throughout his weekly noon-time prayer with pilgrims and vacationers in St. Peter’s Sq..
It is going to be the tenth consistory known as by the pope since his election 11 years in the past as the primary pontiff from Latin America.
The brand new cardinals come from a wide selection of nations together with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Italy, Britain, Serbia, Japan, Indonesia, Canada, Ivory Coast and Algeria.
The listing accommodates 20 who’re underneath the age of 80 and subsequently in a position to vote within the conclave to elect a brand new pope after Francis’s dying or resignation.
Solely one of many group is above the age threshold — a 99-year-old Italian archbishop, named in gratitude for his service to the Church. Against this, Mykola Bychok of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, is just 44, making him the youngest cardinal.
By the beginning of subsequent 12 months, there shall be 140 cardinal electors, virtually 80% of them chosen by Francis. This will increase the likelihood that the subsequent pope will share his imaginative and prescient of a extra progressive, inclusive Church.
Church regulation technically limits the variety of elector cardinals to 120, however current popes have ceaselessly gone above that quantity. Fourteen cardinals will flip 80 throughout 2025, together with one named on Sunday.
Francis has constantly named cardinal electors from international locations removed from Rome, giving much less significance than his predecessors to European nations.
All cardinals, no matter age, are allowed to participate in pre-conclave conferences, referred to as Basic Congregations, giving them a say in the kind of particular person they suppose the youthful cardinals ought to select.
Cardinals rank second solely to the pope within the Church hierarchy and function his closest advisers. Their historic energy and affect means they’re nonetheless known as the princes of the Church, although Francis has instructed them to not stay like royalty and to be near the poor.
