Pope Francis has announced that he will create 14 new cardinals on June 29, including the Iraq-based patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church as well as the archbishop of Karachi.
Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, the Chaldean Catholic patriarch of Babylon in Iraq, was born on July 4, 1948 in Zakho, and has held this previous positions since 2013.
The pope said that coming from 11 nations, the new cardinals 'express the universality of the Church, which continues to proclaim the merciful love of God to all people of the earth'.
Pope Francis' list included three men over the age of 80 'who have distinguished themselves for their service to the Church', he said.
The College of Cardinals currently has 213 members, 115 of whom were under the age of 80 and therefore eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope, the Catholic Herald noted.
With the new nominations, those eligible to vote will exceed by five the limit of 120 set by Pope Paul VI. But this is not the first time the limit has been temporarily set aside.
After the consistory on June 29, Pope Francis will have created almost half of the voting cardinals, with 19 given red hats by St John Paul II; 47 by the retired Pope Benedict XVI; and 59 by Pope Francis.
The new cardinals are from: Iraq, Spain, Italy, Poland, Pakistan, Portugal, Peru, Madagascar, Japan, Mexico and Bolivia. They are:
— Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako, 69, Iraq. — Spanish Archbishop Luis F Ladaria, 74, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. — Italian Archbishop Angelo De Donatis, 64, papal vicar for the Diocese of Rome. — Italian Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu, 69, substitute secretary of state. — Polish Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, 54, papal almoner. — Archbishop Joseph Coutts of Karachi, Pakistan, 72. — Bishop Antonio dos Santos Marto of Leiria-Fatima, Portugal, 71. — Archbishop Pedro Barreto of Huancayo, Peru, 74. — Archbishop Desire Tsarahazana of Toamasina, Madagascar, 63. — Archbishop Giuseppe Petrocchi of L'Aquila, Italy, 69. — Archbishop Thomas Aquinas Manyo Maeda of Osaka, Japan, 69. — Archbishop Sergio Obeso Rivera, retired archbishop of Xalapa, Mexico, 86. — Bishop Toribio Ticona Porco, retired prelate of Corocoro, Bolivia, 81. — Spanish Claretian Father Aquilino Bocos Merino, 80.
