Pope picks 14 new cardinals

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday revealed his latest picks to be cardinals in the Catholic Church, including his chief aide for helping the poor in Rome and prelates based in Iraq and Pakistan, where Christians are a vulnerable minority.

“I am happy to announce that on June 29, I will hold a consistory to make 14 new cardinals,” Francis said in surprise remarks to pilgrims and tourists gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the pope’s weekly greetings from a Vatican palace window.

Eleven of the men tapped for the honor would be eligible to cast ballots in the secret conclave that would someday select Francis’ successor, assuming they don’t exceed the voting age limit of 80 by the time a new pope must be elected.

The latest group is the fifth batch of churchmen chosen by Francis to become cardinals since he was a cardinal from Argentina elected pontiff by his peers in 2013.

The latest “princes of the church” hail from countries that include Madagascar, Peru, Mexico and Japan, which has a tiny minority of Catholics. Among the new cardinals is Louis Raphael I Sako, 69, who has been the Baghdad-based patriarch of Babylonia of the Chaldeans since 2013; and Joseph Coutts, 72, archbishop of Karachi, Pakistan.

Two top Vatican officials also are among the new crop of cardinals: Monsignor Luis Ladaria, 74, a Spanish dogmatic theology professor; and Italian Monsignor Giovanni Angelo Becciu. Others tapped include: Monsignor Pedro Barreto, a Jesuit who is archbishop of Huancayo, Peru; Monsignor Angelo De Donatis of Italy; Monsignor Konrad Krajewski of Poland; Monsignor Thomas Aquinas Manyo, who was bishop of Hiroshima before Francis made him archbishop of Osaka, Japan, in 2014; Monsignor Antonio dos Santos Marto, bishop of Portugal’s popular shrine town of Leiria-Fatima; Monsignor Desire Tsarahazana, archbishop of Toamasina, Madagascar; and Monsignor Giuseppe Petrocchi, archbishop of L’Aquila, an Italian mountain town struggling to recover from a 2009 earthquake.

Francis cited three other churchmen who are too old to vote for the next pope, but he chose as cardinals because “they have distinguished themselves for their service to the church.”

They are Emeritus Archbishop of Xalapa, Mexico, Sergio Obeso Rivera; Spanish priest Aquilino Bocos Merino; and Monsignor Toribio Ticona Porco, a Bolivian prelate who worked as a miner to support his family before entering the seminary at 30.