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The Pope Francisco continues its work to reform the hierarchy of the Catholic Church with the investiture this Saturday of thirteen new cardinals who share their vision for the poor, in a ceremony at the Vatican with fewer faithful and guests due to the pandemic.
The 83-year-old first Latin American pope in history, who is designing his legacy, delivered the cardinal title to the new cardinals, including nine electors, that is to say with the right to vote in a future conclave for the election of their successor.
During the homily at the basilica of Saint Peter, the pope warned them about the temptation to fall into “corruption” during religious life and especially to feel like an “eminence”.
“For example, the purple-red of the cardinal habit, which is the color of blood, can become, by the worldly spirit, an eminent distinction. Thus one does not feel like a pastor but rather an eminence. When you feel that, you will feel out of the way, ”he warned.
The ceremony was marked by the coronavirus pandemic, so the eleven new cardinals, in their red liturgical suits, attended with masks, seated at a distance to prevent the spread of the virus.
Due to the health emergency, the ceremony had a very small participation of faithful and guests, about a hundred.
The Vatican respects the restrictions established in Italy by the pandemic and two of those designated, from Asia, could not be present and had to follow the ceremony through the internet, an unprecedented event in the history of the Church.
The 13 new cardinals are six Italians, one Mexican, one Maltese, one Spanish, one American, one Filipino, one Rwandan and one from Brunei.
The list highlights the Archbishop of Santiago, Spanish living in our country, Celestino Aós, and the Bishop Emeritus of San Cristóbal de las Casas (Mexico), the Mexican Felipe Arizmedi Esquivel, who is over 80 years old and will not be able to participate in the conclave.
Those two new cardinals had to comply with a strict 10-day quarantine in the Vatican and undergo diagnostic tests for the covid.
Pastors, friars and bishops of all continents
The new cardinals form a rather heterogeneous group, “bergogliano”, named after the Argentine pope Jorge Mario Bergoglio, some experts on Vatican affairs maintain.
There are parish priests, a Franciscan friar, a retired nuncio, a former director of Caritas, a preacher from the Papal House, some members of the Curia and bishops from various continents and mission lands.
Francisco expands for the seventh time College of Cardinals, practically once a year, to leave its mark and trace the path of the church that dreams, closer to the poor, to the forgotten of the earth.
For this reason he left out the great episcopal sees, such as Turin, Milan or Venice and preferred to reward religious who have dedicated their lives to the care of the poor, of migrants, who reside in the “peripheries” of the world.
Respecting tradition and despite the coronavirus, the future “princes of the Church” knelt to receive the symbolic red cardinal cap from the pope’s hand.
The new cardinals could not exchange the “embrace of peace”, nor are they going to preside over the so-called “courtesy visits”, one of the most special and democratic moments, when the doors of the armored Apostolic Palace are opened for anyone who wants to greet them. and congratulate them.
The first African American
Among the most iconic personalities in this new series of appointments is the first African-American cardinal in history, the Archbishop of Washington, Wilton Gregory, originally from the South Side of Chicago, known for his progressive positions in favor of homosexuals.
They received the title of cardinal on Archbishop of Kigali, Rwanda, Antoine Kambnada, representative of one of the countries most affected by war and famine, as well as Cornelius sim the first cardinal in the history of the small nation of Brunei.
Moving and symbolic that he gave the investiture to two simple Italian priests: the Roman Augusto Paolo Lojudice, “Don Paolo”, current archbishop of Siena, but known for his defense of the gypsies of the capital and the Franciscan friar Mauro Gambetti, 55 years old, guardian of the Holy Convent of Assisi, the city of San Francisco, the saint of the poor.
The College of Cardinals will be made up of 229 cardinals, of which 128 will be electors in a future conclave and 101 are over 80 years old, according to statistics released this Saturday by the Vatican.
The Argentine pope has “created”, according to the religious term, 95 cardinals in almost 8 years of pontificate.
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