VATICAN CITY
Irish Times
Paddy Agnew
Pope Francis continued with his non-European “imprint” on the Catholic Church when he named his first batch of cardinals today, with ten of the 16 elector cardinals coming from outside Europe.
Two of the new cardinals come from Africa, two from Asia, two from Central America, one from North America and three from Latin America.
As is customary, the Pope himself announced the names of the new cardinals during his Sunday Angelus address in St Peter’s Square. Argentine Pope Francis, the pontiff who has described himself as coming “from the ends of the world”, has made no secret of his belief that he believes that the Catholic Church is too “euro-centric”. Even including today’s appointments, the College of Cardinal Electors (those under 80) is still more than 50 per cent European. More than half the world’s Catholics live in Latin America alone.
Not surprisingly then, the largest contingent of new, non-European Cardinals comes from Latin America with the red hat being bestowed on the Pope’s successor in Buenos Aires, Archbishop Mauro Aurelio Poli, on the Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro, Orani Joao Tempesta and on the Archbishop of Santiago, Chile, Riccardo Ezzati Andrello. The remaining seven non-Europeans come from Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Nicaragua, Haiti, the Philippines, South Korea and Canada.
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