CNEWA congratulates Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, and Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, upon their nomination as cardinals by Pope Francis on Sunday, 9 July.
CNEWA has long worked with both men; with Cardinal-designate Gugerotti as a part of the team at the former Congregation for the Eastern Churches and then in his years as nuncio in Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine and Belarus; and with Cardinal-designate Pizzaballa when he was elected Custos of the Holy Land.
Many years!


Learn more about this announcement in this CNS story:
Pope Francis named 21 new cardinals, who will be formally installed during a special consistory at the Vatican on 30 September.
The new cardinals represent more than a dozen countries on five continents. Three of the new cardinals are current Vatican officials, three are current or retired apostolic nuncios, 13 are current or retired heads of archdioceses around the world, one is a rector major of the Salesians and one is a 96-year-old confessor in Buenos Aires. Six belong to religious orders; two of them are Jesuits.
Continuing a papal custom, among the new cardinals were three churchmen — two archbishops and a Capuchin Franciscan priest — over the age of 80, whom Pope Francis said he wanted to honor because they were particularly deserving because of “their service to the church.” Being over the age of 80, they are ineligible to vote in a conclave to elect the next pontiff.
After the new cardinals are installed in late September, there will be 137 potential voters and the total membership of the College of Cardinals is expected to be 243.
The September ceremony will mark the ninth time Pope Francis has created cardinals since his election to the papacy in March 2013. After the ceremony on 30 September, he will have created a total of 131 new cardinals in that College of Cardinals, which would make up about 54 percent of the total college and 72 percent of potential electors.
Before he read the 21 names, Pope Francis told the estimated 15,000 people in St. Peter’s Square that the diversity of the new cardinals “expresses the universality of the church, which continues to proclaim God’s merciful love to all people on Earth.”