Pope Francis creates 13 new cardinals

Pope Francis created 13 new cardinals last Saturday, urging them to remain vigilant lest they lose sight of their goal of the cross and resurrection.

“All of us love Jesus, all of us want to follow him, yet we must always be vigilant to remain on the road,” Pope Francis said at the consistory .

“Jerusalem always lies ahead of us. The cross and the resurrection are … always the goal of our journey,” he said in his homily in St Peter’s Basilica.

In the seventh consistory of his pontificate, Pope Francis created cardinals from Africa, Europe, North and South America, and Asia.

Among them is Cardinal Wilton Gregory, archbishop of Washington, who became the first African American cardinal in the Church’s history. He received the titular church of St Mary Immaculate in Grottarossa.

Archbishop Celestino Aós Braco of Santiago, Chile; Archbishop Antoine Kambanda of Kigali, Rwanda; Archbishop Augusto Paolo Lojudice of Siena, Italy; and Fra Mauro Gambetti, Custos of the Sacred Convent of Assisi also joined the College of Cardinals.

Pope Francis placed a red hat on each cardinal’s head and said: “To the glory of almighty God and the honour of the Apostolic See, receive the scarlet biretta as a sign of the dignity of the cardinalate, signifying your readiness to act with courage, even to the shedding of your blood, for the increase of the Christian faith, for the peace and tranquillity of the people of God and for the freedom and growth of the Holy Roman Church.”

Each of the newly elevated cardinals received a ring, and was assigned a titular church, tying them to the Diocese of Rome.

In his homily, the Pope warned the new cardinals of the temptation to follow a different road than the road to Calvary.

“The road of those who, perhaps even without realising it, ‘use’ the Lord for their own advancement,” he said. “Those who – as Saint Paul says – look to their own interests and not those of Christ.

“The scarlet of a cardinal’s robes, which is the colour of blood, can, for a worldly spirit, become the colour of a secular ‘eminence,’” Francis said, warning them of the “many kinds of corruption in the priestly life.”

Pope Francis encouraged the cardinals to reread St Augustine’s sermon number 46, calling it a “magnificent sermon on shepherds”.

“Only the Lord, through his cross and resurrection, can save his straying friends who risk getting lost,” he said.

Nine of the new cardinals are under the age of 80 and thereby eligible to vote in a future conclave.