College of Cardinals

The meeting was to reflect on the apostolic constitution “Praedicate evangelium” (Preach the Gospel) on the reform of the Roman Curia.

One by one 11 senior churchmen, including two U.S. citizens — Cardinals Wilton D. Gregory of Washington and Silvano M. Tomasi, a former Vatican diplomat — knelt before Pope Francis to receive their red hats, a cardinal’s ring and a scroll formally declaring their new status and assigning them a “titular” church in Rome.

Pope Francis has expanded the ranks of the top members of the College of Cardinals, naming as “cardinal bishops” Cardinal Tagle and Cardinal Beniamino Stella, prefect of the Congregation for Clergy.

The College of Cardinals has 120 cardinals under 80 years of age and, therefore, eligible to enter a conclave, come from 65 countries, a result of Pope Francis’ practice of naming several cardinals from countries that have never had one before.

Pope Francis, who described himself as coming from “the ends of the earth,” continues to go to the far reaches of the globe to seek those who will advise him and possibly elect the next pope.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The former secretary to a saint and the oldest member of the College of Cardinals died May 26 at the age of […]