Pope Francis names 14 new cardinals

Louis Raphael 1 Sako

Source: Vatican News

Speaking to pilgrims and visitors gathered in St Peter's Square last Sunday for the recitation of the Regina Caeli prayer, the Pope announced he would create 14 new cardinals at a Consistory on 29 June. The men who will receive their red hats from the Pope include bishops from Iraq, Pakistan, Portugal, Peru, Madagascar, Italy and Japan.

Among the list is a retired archbishop of Mexico, a retired bishop of Bolivia and a priest from the Claretian order, all of whom, he said, "have distinguised themselves for their service to the Church". His chief aide for helping Rome's homeless and poor is on the list, as well as prelates based in Iraq and Pakistan, where Christians are a vulnerable minority. The choice of Louis Raphael I Sako, the Baghdad-based patriarch of Babylonia of the Chaldeans, and Joseph Coutts, archbishop of Karachi, Pakistan highlights the plight of Christians persecuted for their faith in areas where Islamic fundamentalists have targeted them.

His decision to give the red hat to the Peruvian Jesuit, Pedro Ricardo Barreto Jimeno, 69, the archbishop of Huancayo, is particularly significant as he has been a prophetic leader in the effort to protect the environment in the Amazon region, even before the encyclical "Laudato Si'," and has received death threats for his work. He is a member of REPAM (the church network for the Amazonian region) and of the preparatory council for the synod of bishops for Amazonia, which will convene in October 2019.

Francis' choice of Msgr. Konrad Krajewski, a good-natured Pole who has handed out sleeping bags to homeless people on cold Roman nights and driven poor people to seaside day trips paid for by the Vatican, reflects the pope's determination to make the Catholic Church known for its attention to those on life's margins. The list of names includes names from Africa, Asia, and South America, as Francis continues to make the College of Cardinals less European than it has been in centuries past. Francis has now chosen 59 of the 126 current electors - roughly 47 percent of the electoral college. Benedict XVI named 46 of the others, while St. John Paul II created the remaining 20.

The full list of new cardinals is:

Louis Raphaël I Sako, 69, Chaldean Catholic patriarch of Babylon; Angelo De Donatis, 64, vicar general of Rome; Joseph Coutts, 72, archbishop of Karachi; António dos Santos Marto, 71, bishop of Leiria-Fatima; Pedro Barreto, 74, archbishop of Huancayo, Peru; Desiré Tsarahazana, 63, archbishop of Toamasina, Madagascar; Giuseppe Petrocchi, 69, archbishop of L'Aquila; Thomas Aquinas Manyo, 69, archbishop of Osaka, Japan; Spanish bishop Luis Ladaria, 74; Konrad Krajewski, 54, from Poland; Italian archbishop Angelo Becciu, 69.