Francis Names 14 New 'Princes of the Church'

Pope Francis announced on Sunday he has chosen 14 men to be the newest cardinals in the church, among them his chief aide for helping Rome's homeless and poor, as well as 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 (ceremony) to make 14 new cardinals," Francis said, in what Reuters frames as a surprise announcement. "The countries of provenance express the universality of the church," Francis added. Then he revealed his picks to be the latest "princes of the church," including from Africa, elsewhere in Asia, and South America, as he continues to make the College of Cardinals less European than it had been in centuries. Francis has now nominated 74 cardinals. Among the newest, per the AP:

• Monsignor Konrad Krajewski, a good-natured Pole who has handed out sleeping bags to homeless on frigid Roman nights and driven poor people to seaside day trips paid for by the Vatican.
• Louis Raphael I Sako, the Baghdad-based patriarch of Babylonia of the Chaldeans.
• Joseph Coutts, archbishop of Karachi, Pakistan.
• Two top Vatican officials: Spanish Monsignor Luis Ladaria, who heads the Holy See's powerful office in charge of ensuring doctrinal orthodoxy, and, like the pope, is a Jesuit; and Italian Monsignor Giovanni Angelo Becciu, the No. 2 in the influential secretariat of state office. Becciu is also special delegate to the recently troubled Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

• Rome's vicar general, Monsignor Angelo De Donatis.
• Others: Monsignor Antonio dos Santos Marto, bishop of Fatima, Portugal; Monsignor Pedro Barreto, archbishop of Huancayo, Peru; Monsignor Desire Tsarahazana, archbishop of Toamasina, Madagascar; Monsignor Thomas Aquinas Manyo, archbishop of Osaka, Japan; and Monsignor Giuseppe Petrocchi, archbishop of L'Aquila, Italy.
• Emeritus Archbishop of Xalapa, Mexico, Sergio Obeso Rivera; Monsignor Toribio Ticona Porco, a prelate from Corocoro, Bolivia; and Spanish priest Aquilino Bocos Merino are all over 80, and ineligible to vote for the next pope.

(More Pope Francis stories.)