By Paschal Norbert
VATICAN CITY, JULY 11, 2023 (CISA)- Pope Francis has named 21 clergymen to be made cardinals in a September 30, 2023, consistory, including Most Rev. Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla of the Catholic Archdiocese of Juba, thereby making him the first cardinal-elect of Africa’s youngest nation South Sudan.
The announcement of the creation of new cardinals was made July 9 during the Sunday Angelus at the Vatican.
“I would like to announce that next 30 September I will hold a Consistory for the appointment of new Cardinals. Where they come from expresses the universality of the Church, which continues to proclaim the merciful love of God to all people of the earth,” Pope Francis said.
This brings the total number of consistories called by the pontiff to nine in his ten-year pontificate.
“The insertion of the new Cardinals in the Diocese of Rome manifests the inseparable bond between the See of Peter and the local Churches spread throughout the world,” the pope added.
The new cardinal-elects come from countries including, the United States, Italy, Argentina, Switzerland, South Africa, Spain, Colombia, South Sudan, Hong Kong, Poland, Malaysia, Tanzania and Portugal.
Eighteen of the 21 cardinals named are under 80 years of age and will be able to elect the next pope. They are formally known as cardinal electors.
After the September consistory, which will precede the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (Synod in Synodality), there will be 137 cardinal electors of whom 73 percent have been chosen by Pope Francis.
In Africa, the pope also named former Secretary of the Dicastery of Evangelization and Co-adjutor Archbishop of Tabora, Tanzania, Archbishop Protase Rugambwa and Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, Archbishop Stephen Brislin as cardinal-elects.
In the recent past, the choices of cardinals made by the pope in Africa have gained an equal measure of praise and criticism as voices within the local Church postulate that many deserving clerics are being bypassed for more moderate bishops aligned with the reforms of the Holy See.
