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ROME – Pope Francis elevated 13 new cardinals to the highest rank in the Catholic hierarchy on Saturday and immediately warned them not to use their titles for corrupt personal gain, presiding over a ceremony marked from start to finish by the coronavirus pandemic.
Two new “princes” of the church, from Brunei and the Philippines, did not arrive in Rome due to the Covid-19 travel restrictions, although they appeared on giant screens watching it from their home in the almost empty St. Peter’s Basilica. Throughout the socially estranged ceremony, which lasted for an unusually quick 45 minutes, new and old cardinals wore protective masks.
Most removed their masks when they approached an unmasked Francis to receive their red hats, but Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the first African-American cardinal, kept his. Gregory was also one of the only new cardinals to keep his mask on when the group paid a courtesy call singing to retired Pope Benedict XVI.
During his homily, Francis warned the new cardinals against corruption or using their new rank for personal advancement, saying that just because they have a new title, “Eminence,” doesn’t mean they should turn away from their people.
His comments reflected Francis’ constant complaint about the arrogance of the clerical class, as well as his current battles to combat corruption in the Vatican hierarchy.
“Let us think of so many types of corruption in the life of the priesthood,” Francis told the new cardinals, deviating from his prepared text. If they think of themselves so grandly, “they will not be shepherds close to the people, they will simply be ‘Eminence. And if you feel that way, you will have gotten out of the way, “the Pope warned.
The ceremony, known as a consistory, is the seventh of Francis’ pontificate and once again reflected the effort of the Argentine pope to name cardinals from places that have never had them before or whose service to the church he wants to highlight. Nine are under 80 years old and eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope, further solidifying the majority of the voting-age prelates appointed by Francis in the College of Cardinals.
Gregory, the new Archbishop of Washington, told The Associated Press before the ceremony that he viewed his appointment as “an affirmation of Black Catholics in the United States, the heritage of faith and fidelity that we represent.”
Gregory’s appointment comes after a year of racial protests in the US sparked by the latest murder of a black man by a white police officer. Francis has endorsed the protests and cited the American history of racial injustice.
“There is awareness now of the need for racial reconciliation, a consciousness that I have not seen before at this level and with this intensity,” Gregory said.
Another social justice-minded cardinal is the retired Archbishop of Chiapas, Mexico, Cardinal Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, who has championed the rights of Mexico’s indigenous peoples and spearheaded efforts to translate the Bible and liturgical texts into native languages.
Francisco visited Chiapas in 2016 and has long defended the rights of indigenous peoples. “That could be one of the reasons (he made me a cardinal) but I can’t confirm it,” Esquivel said during a Zoom call.
Vatican theologian and in-house preacher Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa was also given a red hat, but successfully argued against being appointed bishop as well, saying that at his age, 86, he could not take responsibility. He also avoided a red cassock for Saturday’s ceremony, instead wearing his brown hooded friar’s robe covered with a white rochet robe.
After the ceremony, Francis and the new cardinals visited Benedict XVI, who lives on the other side of the Vatican gardens in a converted monastery. Francis, again without a mask, greeted his predecessor warmly. The cardinals greeted Benedict, kissed his hand and sang a prayer as the retired pope, who is 93 years old and frail, listened. Only Gregory and another new cardinal kept their mask on during the encounter.
The ceremony took place in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, which broke out in Italy in February and has resurfaced this fall. The Vatican is under a modified lockdown, with the Vatican Museums closed and Francis’ general public audiences canceled. Instead, it keeps them private, broadcast live.
Cardinal candidates and others who came to Rome from afar for Saturday service were required to undergo a 10-day Vatican-ordered quarantine at the Pope’s hotel, where meals were brought to their rooms.
The consistories are generally packed with parties and crowds, with days of receptions, masses and dinners for the new cardinals and their friends. The consistory itself is normally followed by “courtesy visits,” where the new cardinals greet supporters and the general public from the grandeur of their own reception rooms in the Apostolic Palace or in the Vatican auditorium. This year, there were no courtesy visits, and each cardinal received a limit of 10 guests.
With the new cardinals on Saturday, Francis appointed 73 of 128 voting-age cardinals, compared with 39 for Pope Benedict XVI and 16 for St. John Paul II. While the outcome of a future conclave can never be predicted, it is no exaggeration to suggest that a vast majority of voters today presumably share the pastoral and doctrinal attitudes of the Pope who appointed them.
The geographical composition of the College of Cardinals has also shifted away from Europe during the Francis government, although Europe remains the largest voting bloc with 53 voters. The Americas – North, Central, South and the Caribbean – together have 37 cardinal electors, although an estimated 40 percent of the world’s Catholics live in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Francis has continued the trend of naming cardinals from the “peripheries” of the Catholic Church: Brunei secured its first cardinal with the Vatican’s ambassador to the country, Cardinal Cornelius Sim.
Rwanda also got its only cardinal with the Archbishop of Kigali, Antoine Kambanda, whose family was killed during the Rwandan genocide. Kambanda made the trip to Rome for the ceremony, Sim stayed home due to Covid-19 restrictions.
The first Jesuit pope in history has also increased the number of cardinals belonging to religious orders, naming three Franciscans this time in a year in which the Pope, who named himself in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi, published an encyclical inspired by the saint’s call to fraternity and solidarity with the weakest. (AP)
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