Popes meet during cardinals’ celebration

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis urged 19 freshman cardinals to shun rivalries and factions at an induction ceremony Saturday where his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, made a surprise appearance.

It was the first time Benedict attended a papal rite since his resignation a year ago. His presence offered the remarkable scene of a former pope, a reigning pope and potentially a future pope in St. Peter’s Basilica at the same time.

Cardinals are the pope’s closest advisers in the Vatican and around theworld.

In addition to being church leaders in their home countries, those cardinals not based in the Vatican are members of key committees in Rome that decide policies affecting 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.

The new cardinals come from Italy, Germany, Britain, Nicaragua, Canada, Ivory Coast, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, Chile, Burkina Faso, the Philippines and Haiti. Three who are older than 80 and cannot participate in the selection of a pope come from Italy, Spain and St. Lucia.

Benedict, 86, came in through a side entrance and sat in the front row with cardinals. Whenhe reached the front of the basilica to start the ceremony, Pope Francis greeted Benedict, who took off his white skullcap in a sign of respect and obedience.

The audience clapped when Benedict walked in, and again when his name was mentioned by a new cardinal.

Francis urged the new cardinals to be men of spirituality and service.

“Whenever a worldly mentality predominates, the result is rivalry, jealousy, factions,” he said.