Pope adds 21 new cardinals while sporting mysterious face mark at Vatican ceremony
In a grand Vatican ceremony Pope Francis welcomed 21 new cardinals from across the globe despite having a visible bruise. The event shows his push to make church leadership more world-wide focused
At St Peters Basilica this saturday Pope Francis conducted a major ceremony with an unexpected detail - a purple-colored mark on his lower face (which Vatican officials chose not to discuss)
The 87-year old pontiff whoʼs birthday comes up this month didnt let his wheel-chair or the mysterious bruise stop him from leading the ritual-filled event; he appeared quite strong during the whole thing. The ceremony marked a big-time change in church leadership with twenty-one new red-hat wearing church officials joining the ranks
The new picks show Pope Francisʼs world-wide focus with fresh cardinals coming from different corners of Earth:
- A belgian monk working in Iran
- Leaders from Peru and Argentina
- Representatives from Japan and Philippines
- First-time picks from Algeria and Serbia
- Several church-men from India and Africa
“We need to be bridge-builders and unity-makers in our world-wide family“ > [[Pope Francis stated during his speech to the new cardinals]]
The pope who started his job bout 11 years ago has now hand-picked most of the church-men whoʼll choose the next pope - thats a real game-changer for the churchs future. Italy still keeps its top spot with 17 voting cardinals; four new ones just joined from Turin and Naples
The total number of countries with cardinal-voters now hits 67 which is way more than when Francis first became pope. Archbishop Bessi Dogbo from Ivory Coast thinks its great: “Having church leaders from everywhere really shows what catholic means“
