Pope Francis has named 21 new cardinals, significantly increasing the size of the College of Cardinals and further cementing his mark on the group of prelates who will one day elect his successor.
Among those named by history’s first Latin American pope were the heads of several major dioceses and archdioceses in South America.
They include the heads of the Catholic church in Santiago del Estero, Argentina; Porto Alegre, Brazil; Santiago, Chile; Guayaquil, Ecuador; and Lima, Peru.
The new cardinals will get their red hats at a ceremony, known as a consistory, on December 8 – an important feast day that officially kicks off the Christmas season in Rome.
Even before Sunday’s announcement, Francis had already named the vast majority of the voting-age cardinals who will one day vote in a conclave to choose his successor.
According to Vatican statistics, before Sunday, 92 of the cardinals aged under 80 — and thus eligible to vote in a conclave — had been named by Francis, compared with 24 named by Pope Benedict XVI and six by St John Paul II.
Added to their ranks on Sunday were two Vatican officials who hold positions that do not usually carry with them a cardinal’s rank: the official in charge of the migrants section of the Vatican development office, the Reverend Fabio Baggio, and the official who organises the pope’s foreign travels, the Reverend George Jacob Koovakad.
In a nod to the current synod under way at the Vatican this month debating the future of the church, Francis also tapped the Reverend Timothy Radcliffe, a British theologian who is one of the spiritual advisers for the meeting.
