At the event, Onaiyekan sat down and exchanged pleasantries with dozens of cardinals in the traditional exchange of peace that follows the formal elevation rite.
According Associated Press (AP), the Pope’s selection of the five cardinals was a response to criticism that the club of churchmen who will choose his successor is too Eurocentric.
He will celebrate Mass today with his new cardinals.
While Benedict didn’t mention the cardinals’ primary task in his remarks, he did remind them that the scarlet of their cassock and hat that they wear symbolises the blood that cardinals must be willing to shed to remain faithful to the church.
“From now on you will be even more closely and intimately linked to the See of Peter,” he said.
The six new cardinals are all under age 80. Their nominations bring the number of voting-age cardinals to 120, 67 of whom were named by Benedict, all but ensuring that his successor will be chosen from a group of like-minded prelates.
Yesterday’s consistory marked the first time in decades that not a single European or Italian has been made a cardinal - a statistic that has not gone unnoticed in Italy. Italy still has the lions’ share of cardinals, though, with 28 voting-age “princes” of the church.
The other five cardinals are from Colombia, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, the Philippines and the United States.
Benedict welcomed the prelates into the College of Cardinals during a short, hour-long ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica, telling them that their presence among the other red-robed prelates was a sign of the “unique, universal and all-inclusive identity” of the Catholic Church.
“In this consistory, I want to highlight in particular the fact that the church is the church of all peoples, and so she speaks in the various cultures of the different continents,” he told the crowd.
Benedict said that with this “little consistory,” he was essentially completing his last cardinal-making ceremony held in February, when he elevated 22 cardinals, the vast majority of them European archbishops and Vatican bureaucrats.
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