{Pope Francis has announced the appointment of 20 new cardinals to the elite group of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, with many of the new churchmen coming from developing nations.}<\/p>\n
Fifteen of the new cardinals are also under the age of 80, meaning they are eligible to join the conclave which elects the next pontiff.<\/p>\n
The list includes Bishop Soane Patita Paini Mafi of Tonga and Archbishop Charles Maung Bo of Myanmar.<\/p>\n
Bishop Mafi said it was a humbling and joyful achievement to be picked from a small church in the Pacific.<\/p>\n
“In a way, it’s not just for Tonga, it’s for Oceania,” he told the ABC.<\/p>\n
“It’s good to see that development from the Vatican. <\/p>\n
“There were two of us – there was John Dew from the archdiocese of Wellington who was also appointed – so the two of us will be a fairly balanced way of representing the churches here in this part of the world.”<\/p>\n
Thailand’s Archbishop Francis Xavier Kriengsak Kovithavanij and Vietnam’s Bishop Pierre Nguyen Van Nhon were also among the new cardinals the Pope named. <\/p>\n
Cardinals were also selected from Ethiopia, Cape Verde, Mexico, Panama, Uruguay, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Colombia and Portugal.<\/p>\n
Only one of the new electors is from the Curia, the Vatican’s central administration, which Francis has pledged to overhaul. Last month, the pope said the Curia was infected with careerism, scheming, greed and “spiritual Alzheimer’s”.<\/p>\n
Observers said the new cardinals, who will be formally installed next month, better reflect the diversity and spread of the Church and add to the Pope’s commitment to the poor. <\/p>\n
It was the second time Pope Francis has used the appointment of cardinals to put his stamp on the 1.2 billion-member Church. <\/p>\n
The two sets of appointments increase the chances that the next pontiff will, like Pope Francis, be a non-European.<\/p>\n
Pope Francis read out the names of the 20 new cardinals to tens of thousands of people in St Peter’s Square for his Sunday address.<\/p>\n
It was the first time cardinals from Myanmar, Tonga and Cape Verde had been appointed, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.<\/p>\n
He said the pontiff “does not feel chained to the tradition” that some major cities in Italy, elsewhere in Europe or in the United States, should automatically have cardinals to lead them.<\/p>\n
No new cardinals from North America were chosen because their number “is already sizeable”, Mr Lombardi said. There are 15 cardinal electors in the United States and Canada.<\/p>\n
Sunday’s appointments bring the total number of cardinals to 228, 125 of them electors and 103 of them non-electors over 80. <\/p>\n
ABC\/wires<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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