By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis, who described himself as
coming from “the ends of the earth,” continues to go to the far
reaches of the globe to seek those who will advise him and possibly elect the
next pope.
Announcing May 21 that he was adding five churchmen to the
College of Cardinals, Pope Francis said their geographic mix — two Europeans, an African, an Asian
and a Central American — reflect the catholicity of the church.
After the June
28 consistory, 62 countries will have at least one cardinal elector — a
cardinal under the age of 80 and, therefore, eligible both to vote in a
conclave to elect a new pope, but also available for membership on various
Vatican congregations, councils and dicasteries.
Obviously, Pope Francis is continuing the big push begun
under Blessed Paul VI
to internationalize the College of Cardinals. The cardinal electors that chose St. John Paul II in 1978 came
from 49 countries. The group that elected now-retired Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 came from 51 nations
(52 if England and Scotland are counted separately). And the cardinals who
gathered in the Sistine Chapel to elect Pope Francis hailed from 47 countries.
But for Pope Francis it is not just about numbers, and he is
not looking for some “balanced” geographical mix.
If it is about catholicity, as he said, then it is about the
way the faith is lived, expressed and grows in different cultures and how those
experiences become riches for the church as a whole.
Here Pope Francis’ understanding of inculturation and his
favorite geometrical shape — the
polyhedron — come into play.
A polyhedron is an irregular shape with many sides; the
sides do not have to be the same size and they do not have to be spaced the
same distance from the center.
As Pope Francis wrote in “The Joy of the Gospel,” the 2013
exhortation that laid out his vision for his pontificate, in a polyhedron each
part “preserves its distinctiveness” but contributes to the whole.
For Christians, he said, seeing the global church as a
polyhedron “evokes the totality or integrity of the Gospel, which the church
passes down to us and sends us forth to proclaim.”
Every facet or side of the three-dimensional object
represents “the genius” of each people who has received “in its
own way the entire Gospel and embodies it in expressions of prayer, fraternity,
justice, struggle and celebration.”
Masterpieces of theology and spirituality, music, art and
architecture obviously are gifts Catholics are called to share with each other.
But, for Pope Francis, so are the experiences of keeping the faith amid
crushing poverty or persecution.
The five churchmen who will become cardinals June 28 are: Auxiliary Bishop Gregorio Rosa
Chavez of San
Salvador, El Salvador, 74; Archbishop Jean
Zerbo of Bamako, Mali,
73; Archbishop Juan Jose Omella
of Barcelona, Spain, 71; Bishop Anders Arborelius of Stockholm, 67; and Bishop Louis-Marie Ling Mangkhanekhoun, apostolic vicar of Pakse, Laos, 73.
The short biographies the Vatican released May 21 give
glimpses of the gifts Pope Francis wants them to share with the rest of the
church. For example:
— Cardinal-designate Rosa Chavez, who worked closely with Blessed Oscar Romero before he was
assassinated in 1980, is the president of Caritas El Salvador and
president of Caritas Latin America and Caribbean.
— Cardinal-designate Zerbo played an active role in the
Mali peace process, trying to end years of civil strife that began in 2012.
— Cardinal-designate Mangkhanekhoun is known for training
catechists and making pastoral visits to remote mountain villages.
— Cardinal-designate Arborelius is a convert to Catholicism
and the first native-born Swede to serve as a Catholic bishop in Sweden since
the Protestant Reformation.
— Cardinal-designate Omella has been a longtime member and
two-term president of the Spanish bishops’ social concerns commission.
In Pope Francis’ vision, appreciating the polyhedron that is
the universal church means not only going out to the “peripheries”
with the Gospel, but listening to stories of faith there and giving witness of
that experience to Christians living in places often mistakenly considered
central, if not the center of the Christian world.
In his homily on Epiphany, Jan. 6, Pope Francis noted that
the Three Wise Men first went to Herod’s palace in Jerusalem, but they
discovered “that what they sought was not in a palace, but elsewhere, both
existentially and geographically.”
“The Magi experienced longing; they were tired of the
usual fare. They were all too familiar with, and weary of, the Herods of their
own day,” the pope said. Off the beaten track, in Bethlehem, “before
the small, poor and vulnerable infant,” they “discovered the glory of
God.”
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Follow Wooden on Twitter: @Cindy_Wooden.
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