Francis presided over the Consistory in which he created 20 new cardinals, including six Asian prelates. He cited as models the Secretary of State for dialogue with the East and the Vietnamese man who took care of his jailer. The new Cardinal of Mongolia, Giorgio Marengo: the government of Ulaanbaatar officially invited the Pontiff to visit the country and Francis replied that he intends to make the trip.
Vatican City () – Bring to today’s world the fire of missionary zeal, but also that of the meekness of Jesus. It is the task that Pope Francis entrusted today to the 20 new cardinals solemnly created this afternoon in Saint Peter’s Basilica, in the eighth consistory of his pontificate. With them, the Sacred College now has 226 cardinals, of which 132 are currently electors in the event of a future conclave.
Commenting on the passage from the Gospel of Luke in which Jesus says that he has come “to bring fire to the earth”, the pontiff invited us to look at the two faces of this fire: “the powerful flame of the Spirit of God, passionate Love that purifies , regenerates and transfigures everything”, but also the “soft and hidden” embers beside which He waits for the disciples after the miraculous catch of fish in the lake of Galilee, recounted in the Gospel of John.
“The powerful fire – he explained – is what encouraged the apostle Paul in his tireless service to the Gospel, in his missionary “career”, guided and always impelled by the Spirit and the Word.
It is also the fire of so many missionaries and missionaries who have experienced the fatigue and the sweet joy of evangelizing, and whose very life has become the gospel, because they have been witnesses above all”. But it is inseparable from the other face of testimony, that of magnanimity and meekness. In this regard, the Pontiff cited the example of Saint Charles de Foucauld: “for a long time, he remained in a non-Christian environment, in the solitude of the desert, and centered everything on presence: the presence of Jesus alive, in the Word and in the Eucharist, and his own fraternal, friendly and charitable presence”.
These are two faces that must be cultivated, the pope told the new cardinals, pointing to two of his predecessors as examples. “A cardinal – Francis said – loves the Church, always with the same spiritual fire, whether he deals with great questions or small matters; both when meeting the great ones of this world and with the little ones, who are great before God.” “I think, for example, of Cardinal Casaroli, justly famous for his open gaze in following the new horizons of Europe after the cold war, with his wise and patient dialogue. And God forbid that human myopia return close the horizons that he opened. But in the eyes of God – he continued – the visits he made regularly to the young inmates of a juvenile prison in Rome, where they called him ‘Don Agostino’, are just as valuable”.
But in addition to being the Vatican Secretary of State for the years of dialogue with Eastern Europe, the pontiff also wanted to point to the Vietnamese Cardinal François-Xavier Nguyễn Van Thuân as an example, “called to shepherd the People of God in another crucial scenario of the 20th century, and at the same time animated by the fire of the love of Christ, to care for the soul of the jailer who stood guard at the door of his cell”. “Jesus – the Pope concluded addressing the new cardinals – wants to shed this fire on earth today too; he wants to rekindle it on the shores of our daily stories. He calls us by name, looks us in the eye and asks us: I can count on you?”.
Francis then presented the cap, ring and title to 19 of the 20 new cardinals. One of them, the Ghanaian Richard Kuuia Baawobr, bishop of Wa, could not be present at the ceremony as he is hospitalized due to a health problem that arose after his arrival in Rome. Among the new cardinals there are six Asians, all of them electors: they are the Korean Lazarus You Heung-sik, prefect of the dicastery for the Clergy and former archbishop of Daejeon; Virgilio do Carmo da Silva, the Archbishop of Dili, in East Timor; the two Indian prelates, Filipe Neri António Sebastião do Rosário Ferrão, Archbishop of Goa and Anthony Poola, Archbishop of Hyderabad; the Archbishop of Singapore, William Goh Seng Chye and the Italian Giorgio Marengo, missionary of the Consolata and apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar, in Mongolia.
The latter announced today that Pope Francis has received an official invitation to visit Mongolia. The official delegation from Ulaanbaatar that traveled to attend the Consistory, led by former President Enkhbayar, delivered a formal message from the current President Khürelsükh. “The Pope,” said the new Cardinal Marengo, “showed great interest in the proposal and expressed his intention to make this trip, as long as his health conditions and the commitments already scheduled allow it.”
Finally, during the Consistory, Pope Francis approved the proclamation of two new saints – Bishop Giovanni Battista Scalabrini, Bishop of Piacenza, founder of the Congregation of the Missionaries of Saint Charles and of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of Saint Charles Borromeo, and Artémides Zatti, an Argentine Salesian layman – setting his canonization for Sunday, October 9, 2022.
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