Pope Francis named 21 new cardinals Sunday, October 6, significantly increasing the size of the College of Cardinals and further cementing his mark on the group of prelates who will one day elect his successor.
Among those named by history’s first Latin American pope were the heads of several major dioceses and archdioceses in South America. They include the heads of the Catholic Church in Santiago del Estero, Argentina; Porto Alegre, Brazil; Santiago, Chile; Guayaquil, Ecuador; and Lima, Peru.
The new cardinals will get their red hats at a ceremony, known as a consistory, on Dec. 8, an important feast day on its own that officially kicks off the Christmas season in Rome.
Even before Sunday’s announcement, Francis had already named the vast majority of the voting-age cardinals who will one day vote in a conclave to choose his successor. According to Vatican statistics, before Sunday, 92 of the cardinals under 80 — and thus eligible to vote in a conclave — had been named by Francis, compared with 24 named by Pope Benedict XVI and six by St. John Paul II.
Added to their ranks on Sunday were two Vatican officials who hold positions that don’t usually carry with them a cardinal’s rank: the official in charge of the migrants section of the Vatican development office, the Rev. Fabio Baggio, and the official who organizes the pope’s foreign travels, the Rev. George Jacob Koovakad.
Among those named were the heads of several major dioceses and archdioceses in South America. They are the archbishop of Santiago del Estero, Argentina, Vicente Bokalic Iglic; the archbishop of Porto Alegre, Brazil, Jaime Spengler; the archbishop of Santiago, Chile, Fernando Natalio Chomali Garib; the archbishop of Guayaquil, Ecuador, Luis Gerardo Cabrera Herrera; and the archbishop of Lima, Peru, Carlos Gustavo Castillo Mattasoglio.
That stands in sharp contrast to the lone new cardinal from North America: the archbishop of Toronto, Francis Leo.
Francis also tapped the archbishop of Tehran, Iran, Monsignor Dominique Joseph Mathieu, and the bishop of Bogor, Indonesia, Monsignor Paskalis Bruno Syukor. They both belong to the Franciscan religious order and are two of the four new Franciscan cardinals.
In addition to Syukor, Asia gets two more cardinals in Monsignor Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, the archbishop of Tokyo; and Monsignor Pablo Virgilio Sinogco David, the bishop of Kalookan, Philippines.
Aside from Asia, Africa got two new cardinals: the archbishop of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Monsignor Ignace Bessi Dogbo, and the bishop of Algiers, Algeria, Monsignor Jean-Paul Vesco.