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Pope names 6 cardinals, none from ItalyBy NICOLE WINFIELD | Associated Press – Wed, Oct 24, 2012.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI named six new cardinals on Wednesday, adding prelates from
Lebanon, the Philippines, Nigeria, Colombia, India and the United States to the ranks of senior churchmen who will elect his successor.
Among them is Archbishop James Harvey, the American prefect of the papal household whom the pope also named archpriest of a Roman basilica.
As prefect, Harvey was the direct superior of the pope's former butler, Paolo Gabriele, who was convicted Oct. 6 of stealing the pope's private papers and leaking them to a reporter in the greatest Vatican security breach in modern times. The Vatican spokesman denied Harvey was being removed from the Vatican because of the scandal.
Benedict, 85, announced the new cardinals during his weekly general audience and said they would be formally elevated Nov. 24. The nominations help even out the geographic distribution of cardinals, which had tilted heavily toward Europe in the last few consistories and Italy in particular.
With the new cardinals installed Nov. 24, there will be 120 "princes" of the church under age 80 and thus eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope. Europe still has the most, with 62. But with the new additions, the College of Cardinals is a tad more multinational: Latin America will have 21; North America, 14; Africa, 11; Asia, 11; and Oceana, one.
Aside from Harvey, the new cardinals are: Archbishop of Abuja, Nigeria, John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan; Archbishop of Bogota, Colombia, Ruben Salazar Gomez; Archbishop of Manila, Philippines, Luis Antonio Tagle; Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites in Lebanon, His Beatitude Bechara Boutros Rai; and the major Archbishop of the Trivandrum of the Siro-Malankaresi in India, His Beatitude Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal.
Absent from the list is German Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, whom the pope named in July to head the Vatican's powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Also missing is Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who has ruffled feathers in the Vatican because of his outspoken criticism of the church's handling of the sex abuse scandal.
In the past, prelates in line for the red hats worn by cardinals have sometimes had to wait their turn if too many were chosen for the Vatican ceremony at which prelates are formally elevated. At six, though, the Nov. 24 consistory will be the smallest in years.
It will be unique in that not a single Italian or European will be elevated, perhaps an intentional response to criticism that the European-heavy College of Cardinals no longer reflects the face of the Catholic Church, which is growing in Africa and Asia but is in crisis in much of Europe.
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