ROME (AP) — Pope Francis is making ready to formally elevate 13 new cardinals, together with the primary African-American to obtain the rank, in a ceremony marked in each approach by the coronavirus pandemic: Two of the cardinals stayed residence, the remaining eschewed the same old celebrations and St. Peter’s Basilica was virtually empty for Saturday’s service.

The ceremony, often called a consistory, is the seventh of Francis’ hold forth and as soon as once more mirrored the Argentine pope’s effort to call cardinals from locations which have by no means had them earlier than or whose service to the church he needs to focus on. 9 are below age 80 and eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a brand new pope, additional solidifying the vast majority of Francis-appointed prelates within the School of Cardinals.

Cardinal-designate Wilton Gregory, archbishop of Washington D.C., is changing into the primary African-American cardinal. He advised The Related Press forward of the ceremony that he considered his appointment as “an affirmation of Black Catholics in the US, the heritage of religion and constancy that we signify.”

Gregory’s appointment comes after a yr of racial protests within the U.S. sparked by the most recent killing of a Black man by a white police officer. Francis has endorsed the protests and cited the American historical past of racial injustices.

“There may be consciousness now of the necessity for racial reconciliation, an consciousness that I’ve not seen at this stage and at this depth earlier than,” Gregory stated.

One other social justice-minded cardinal is the retired archbishop of Chiapas, Mexico, Cardinal-designate Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, who has championed the rights of Mexico’s indigenous peoples and spearheaded efforts to translate the Bible and liturgical texts into native languages.

Francis visited Chiapas in 2016 and has lengthy championed the rights of indigenous peoples. “That might be one of many causes (he made me a cardinal) however I can’t affirm it,” Esquivel stated throughout a Zoom name.

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The Vatican’s in-house theologian-preacher, Cardinal-designate Raniero Cantalamessa, can be getting a pink hat, however he efficiently argued towards being made a bishop as nicely, saying at his age — 86 — he could not tackle the duty.

The ceremony was going down towards the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, which erupted in Italy in February and has seen a resurgence this fall. The Vatican is below a modified lockdown, with the Vatican Museums shuttered and Francis’ public normal audiences cancelled. As an alternative he holds them in personal, livestreamed.

The cardinal candidates and different who got here to Rome from afar for Saturday’s service have been required to bear 10 days of Vatican-mandated quarantine on the pope’s lodge, the place meals have been dropped at their rooms, Zoom calls supplied contact with the skin and the cardinals’ new pink robes have been hand-delivered by Rome’s famed ecclesial tailors.

Normally, consistories are filled with events and crowds, with days of receptions, Lots and dinners for the brand new cardinals and their pals. Normally, the consistory itself can be adopted by “courtesy visits,” the place the brand new cardinals greet well-wishers and most of the people from the grandeur of their very own reception rooms within the Apostolic Palace or Vatican auditorium. This yr, there will likely be no courtesy visits, and every cardinal was given a 10-guest restrict.

With Saturday’s new cardinals, Francis has named 73 of the 128 voting-age cardinals, in comparison with 39 for Pope Benedict XVI and 16 for St. John Paul II. Whereas the end result of a future conclave can by no means be predicted, it’s not a stretch to recommend {that a} hefty majority of as we speak’s electors presumably share the pastoral and doctrinal attitudes of the pope who named them.

The geographical make-up of the School of Cardinals has additionally shifted below Francis away from Europe, although Europe stays the best voting bloc with 53 electors. The Americas – North, Central and South and the Caribbean – collectively have 37 cardinal electors, though an estimated 40% of the worlds Catholics dwell in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Saturday’s consistory is uncommon for the excessive variety of Italians who’ve been named, although three of them are over age 80 and thus ineligible to vote. However Italy nonetheless leads the faculty with extra cardinals than another nation, with 22 voting-age prelates.

Francis has continued the development of naming cardinals from the “peripheries” of the Catholic Church: Brunei acquired its first-ever cardinal with the Vatican’s ambassador to the nation, Cardinal-designate Cornelius Sim.

Rwanda additionally acquired its solely cardinal with the archbishop of Kigali, Antoine Kambanda, whose household was slaughtered in the course of the Rwandan genocide. Kambanda made the journey to Rome for the ceremony, Sin stayed residence as a consequence of COVID-19 restrictions.

Historical past’s first Jesuit pope has additionally elevated the variety of cardinals who belong to spiritual orders, naming three Franciscans this time round in a yr during which the pope, who named himself after St. Francis of Assisi, launched an encyclical impressed by the saint’s name to fraternity and solidarity with the weakest.