It will be Pope Francis’ ninth consistory and the first of his to take place in August.
Pius VII named Francesco Guidobono Cavalchini a cardinal “in pectore” on August 24, 1807, but did not announce his name until April 1808—a sweltering month in Rome when all things slow down in the Vatican Curia.
Pope Francis will have appointed 121 cardinals when these new ones are installed.
The Curia is composed of Fernando Vergez, President of the Governatorate of Vatican City State, Lazzaro You Heung Sik, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, and Arthur Roche, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments.
Pope Francis’ selections of diocesan bishops are more evidence of his predilection for dioceses that are not historically cardinal sees, skipping over well-known locations like Milan, Venice, Krakow, and Paris.
The Divine Father has produced:
— Cardinal Jean-Marc Noel Aveline, the Archbishop of Marseille and 63-year-old recipient of the award for the first French diocese to receive it under Pope Francis;
— Peter Ebere Okpaleke, a 59-year-old bishop of Ekwulobia in central Nigeria who was consecrated a bishop by Benedict XVI in 2012;
— Leonardo Ullrich, 77, the Archbishop of Manaus in Brazil’s Amazon area, a Franciscan who served as Vice President of the freshly established Amazonian Bishops’ Conference and was a key participant in the Amazon Synod;
— Filipe Neri António Sebastio do Rosário Ferro, a 69-year-old Latin-rite bishop of India who was named archbishop of Goa by St. John Paul II in 1993;
— Archbishop José Gomez, president of the USCCB, and Robert McElroy, 68, bishop of San Diego in the United States, whose diocese is suffragan to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles;
— Virgilio do Carmo Da Silva, 68, an East Timorese Salesian archbishop;
— St. John Paul II, who serves as the suffragan of Milan, appointed Oscar Cantoni, 71, Bishop of Como (Italy), in January 2005;
— Anthony Poola, 60, the first dalit to be made a cardinal and the Archbishop of Hyderabad (India);
—Paulo Cezar Costa, a 54-year-old cardinal who is the fourth archbishop of the Brazilian city of Brasilia;
— Bishop Richard Kuuia Baawobr, 62, a former Superior General of the White Fathers who has served in that capacity from 2016;
— William Goh Seng Chye, age 62, who has been Singapore’s archbishop since 2013;
— Adalberto Martinez Flores, 70, the first cardinal from Paraguay and archbishop of Asunción;
— Karol Wojtyla, who was also made a cardinal at the age of 47 at the consistory on June 26, 1967, and Giorgio Marengo, an Italian Missionary of the Consolata and Apostolic Prefect of Ulan Bator in Mongolia, both of whom will be the youngest cardinals in recent history at the age of 47.
Four members on Pope Francis’ final list are above 80 years old and hence unable to participate in a future conclave.
They increased the number of non-electing cardinals from the current 122 to 27.
The Holy Father appointed Fr. Gianfranco Ghirlanda, a Jesuit and former rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University, who actively participated in the drafting of the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium;
Fortunato Frezza, an 80-year-old Italian who is currently a Canon at the Basilica of St. Peter; and Jorge Enrique Jiménez Carvajal, an 80-year-old retired archbishop of Cartagena, Colombia.
A second nominee of Pope Francis was the 80-year-old Ghent Bishop Luc Van Looy, who eventually rejected to take the position due to criticism of his handling of instances of clerical abuse.