Of the 20 new cardinals, 16 are young enough to vote for a new pope; for the rest, the title is honorary. With these, Francis will have picked 82 of the 132 electors
, 20 priests and bishops will kneel before Pope Francis in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican to become cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church. This will be the eighth tranche picked by the pope, who is aged 85. Only the pontiff outranks cardinals, who are also known as the “princes of the church”. They will eventually choose his successor, almost certainly from among their ranks.
Canon law, the set of rules that governs Roman Catholicism, puts no limit on the number of cardinals a pope may choose. Pontiffs, assuming they are in the position for some time, usually choose most of the cardinals who pick their successor. Since 1975 only cardinals under the age of 80 have been allowed to vote on the next pope. Of the 20 new cardinals, 16 are of voting age; for the rest, the title is honorary. With these, Francis will have picked 82 of the 132 electors.
The latest crop further concentrates his focus on the fringes of the church. East Timor, an island country of 1.3m people, more than 97% of whom are Catholic, is getting its first cardinal. So too are Paraguay and Mongolia . Anthony Poola, the archbishop of Hyderabad in India, will become the first Dalit cardinal. Dalits, long considered India’s “untouchables” under the caste system, make up the vast majority of the country’s Catholics but are underrepresented among its bishops.
These choices, and the other selections that Francis has made over the past nine years, have tilted the balance of power in the church away from Europe. The share of European cardinal electors has fallen from 52% to 40%. But neither figure reflects the geographical spread of Catholics today: more than a third are in Latin America;
is the engine of growth; and in Europe and America the church is faltering. Despite the changes Francis has made many regions are still badly underrepresented .
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