2020 Consistory

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.

“I am a pastor,” Cardinal-designate Enrico Feroci, 80, said after Pope Francis announced he would make him a cardinal. “I hope to continue being a pastor.”

Cardinal-designate Tomasi, a Scalabrinian, said Pope Francis has not explained why he chose him, but he thinks one reason is that he belongs “to a small religious family that for over a century has been working with migrants and refugees and displaced people and people on the margins of society

But for many in Mexico, the elevation is seen as the recognition of a prelate who continued the pastoral work of his towering predecessor in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Bishop Samuel Ruiz. Cardinal-designate Arizmendi’s project of building a native church in a mostly indigenous diocese caused conflict with the church hierarchy and land-owning elites, but has found new appreciation since the election of Pope Francis.

Cardinal-designate Paolo Lojudice’s work in Rome’s rough outskirts earned him such titles as “street priest,” “bishop of the Roma” community, and Pope Francis even told him the word was that he was the toughest bishop in the capital.

Asia’s cardinal-designate from Brunei said the church in his country is “the periphery within the periphery.”

Cardinal-designate Jose Advincula, one of the 13 new cardinals recently appointed by Pope Francis, said he believes human rights are central to the church’s mission.

Pope Francis’ appointment of a cardinal for Rwanda — a first — is seen as appreciation for the efforts of the Catholic Church to reconcile people after the country’s 1994 genocide.