Pope urges compassion in elevating 13 likeminded cardinals

Pope Francis has added 13 new cardinals to the top of the Catholic hierarchy, telling them they must show God's compassion to those who suffer to be faithful to their ministry.

Francis presided over the ceremony Saturday in St. Peter's Basilica, elevating churchmen who share his pastoral concerns at a time when his pontificate is under fire from conservatives within the College of Cardinals itself.

Among the 13 are 10 cardinals who are under age 80 and therefore eligible to vote in a conclave, increasing the likelihood that a future pope might end up looking an awful lot like the current one. These are churchmen who care for migrants, promote dialogue with Muslims and minister to the faithful in poor, far-flung missionary posts.

With Saturday's consistory, Francis will have named 52 per cent of the voting-age cardinals. Many hail from churches in the developing world that never have had a "prince" representing them in a sign of Francis' desire to mirror the universal face of the Catholic Church in the church's leadership ranks.

Francis was in many ways preaching to the choir when he urged the new cardinals to both feel and share God's compassion, saying it was an "essential" part of understanding God's love for the weakest and most marginal.

"If I don't feel it, how can I share it, bear witness to it, bestow it on others?" he asked in his homily. "So many disloyal actions on the part of ecclesiastics are born of the lack of a sense of having been shown compassion, and by the habit of averting one's gaze, the habit of indifference."
Many commentators have seen Francis' decision to make Fitzgerald a cardinal as a righting of a past wrong. Fitzgerald, who is over 80 and unable to vote in a conclave, was diplomatic when asked about the significance that both he and his successor were receiving red hats, saying it showed "continuity."
"In prison, there were difficult moments, very difficult moments, and the worst was when I was interrogated," Tamkevicius told journalists at the Vatican this week. "The interrogation would last for months and months."