Francis gives guidance to new cardinals

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, greets Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2015. (AP / L’Osservatore Romano, Pool)

Focus on justice and avoid selfishness

“Even here, charity, and charity alone, frees us,” he said. “Above all it frees us from the mortal danger of pent-up anger, of that smoldering anger which makes us brood over wrongs we have received. No. This is unacceptable in a man of the church.”

Pope Francis today warned his new cardinals of the temptations to self-interest, jealousy and pent-up anger in a homily offered as a guiding reflection for their new ministry. 

Speaking on St Paul’s “hymn to charity” he stressed that those in Church governance need to have a “strong sense of justice” so that Catholics see in their leaders those willing to condemn any form of injustice along with service to the truth. 

The Pope today created 20 new cardinals from across the world including in places that had never had them before such as Tonga, Myanmar, Panama and Cape Verde. 19 of the cardinals received their red hats in person from the Pope although one, Archbishop Emeritus of Manizales, José de Jesús Pimiento Rodriguez, who is 95, was not in attendance. 

Francis described being a cardinal as an “honor but not an honorific” pointing out that the word cardinal comes from the Latin word “cardo” which means hinge.

“It is a pivot, a point of support and movement essential for the life of the community,” the Pope said during the consistory ceremony. 

But he also said that charity must be the principle of their ministry, that they should be willing to show practical acts of kindness and be wary of inclinations to jealousy and pride. This meant, he added, willing the good of others “even those unfriendly to us.”

His homily, with its list of dangers for cardinals, was in a similar vein to the speech he gave to the Roman Curia at the end of last year which listed “15 diseases” that can afflict those that work in the Vatican. 

“Pastors close to their people have plenty of opportunities to be irritable, to feel anger,” he said. “Even here, charity, and charity alone frees us. It frees us from the risk of acting impulsively, of saying or doing the wrong thing; above all it frees us from the mortal danger of pent-up anger, of that smoldering anger which makes us brood over wrongs we have received. Even if a momentary outburst is forgivable, this not the case with rancour.”

The new cardinals must also be wary of becoming self-centered, the Pope said, and that even a self-centered person can dress up their “interests” as noble. 

As is tradition, cardinals become members of the clergy of Rome and Francis reflected on this fact by saying: “the more we are incardinated in the Church of Rome, the more we should become docile to the Spirit, so that charity can give form and meaning to all that we are and all that we do.”

Those named to the college of cardinals today include: 

Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura 

Patriarch Manuel Macário do Nascimento Clemente, of Lisbon, Portugal 

Archbishop Berhaneyesus Souraphiel of Addis Ababa, Ethopia 

Archbishop John Dew of Wellington, New Zealand 

Archbishop Edourdo Menichelli of Ancona-Osima, Italy, 

Archbishop Pierre Nguyen Van Nhon of Hanoi, Vietnam 

Archbishop Charles Bo of Yangon, Myanmar

Archbishop Francis Xavier Kovithavanij of Bangkok, Thailand

Archbishop Francesco Montenegro of Argigento, Italy

Archbishop Daniel Sturla Berhouet, of Montevidea, Uruguay

Archbishop Ricardo Blazquéz Peréz, of Valladolid, Spain

Bishop Jose Luis Lacunza Maestrojuán, of David, Panama

Bishop Arlindo Gomes Furtado, of Cape Verde, Africa

Bishop Soane Patita Paini Mafi of Tonga

Those over the age of 80:

Archbishop Luigi De Magistris, Pro-Major (Apostolic) Penitentiary Emeritus

Archbishop Karl-Josef Rauber, former Apostolic Nuncio

Archbishop Emeritus Luis Héctor Villalba of Tucumán, Argentina

Bishop Emeritus Julio Duarte Langa, of Xai-Xai, Mozambique

 

Above: Four of the prelates who received their red hat: John Dew of Wellington, New Zealand; Berhaneyesus Souraphiel of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Manuel Macario do Nascimento Clemente of Lisbon, Portugal; and French Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, prefect of the Vatican’s Apostolic Signatura. Photo: CNS

Source: The Tablet