He Pope Francisco This Saturday he named 21 cardinals, including five Latin Americans and two Spaniards (plus a third from the French Church and of Spanish origin), most of whom will be able to choose the successor of the Argentine Jesuit.
Francis, the first Latin American pope, has taken pains to design a Sacred college less western and more oriented towards the southern hemisphere.
The solemn ceremony, the ninth Ordinary Consistory since the pontiff’s election in 2013, it was celebrated in the St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican on Saturday during a sunny morning.
The new cardinals dressed in scarlet red — a color that evokes the blood shed by Christ on the cross — knelt in front of the pope to receive the cardinal’s cap and a distinctive ring.
“Courage!”, “Courage!”, said the Pope to encourage the new cardinals who were accompanied by the cheers of the faithful, who waved flags of various countries.