Pope Benedict XVI holds Consistory, announces canonizations

Pope Benedict XVI held an Ordinary Public Consistory today, during which he created 22 new Cardinals and announced the date of the canonization of 7 Blessed, including Marianne Cope and Kateri Tekakwitha.

The Holy Father created 18 new Cardinal-electors, bringing the number of voting Cardinals to 125.

Among them were:

 - Edwin Frederick O’Brien, the Pro-Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem;
 - Thomas Christopher Collins, Archbishop of Toronto, Canada;
 - Timothy Michael Dolan, Archbishop of New York;
 - His Beatitude, George Alencherry, the Syro-Malabar Patriarch of India;
 - John Tong Hon, bishop of Hong Kong.

In his allocution following a reading from the Gospel according to St. Mark, the Holy Father prayed that, “Christ’s total gift of self on the Cross,” might be for the new Cardinals, “the foundation, stimulus and strength of a faith operative in charity.”

He went on to express the hope that their mission in the Church and the world, “always be ‘in Christ’ alone, responding to his logic and not that of the world,” and that it may, “be illumined by faith and animated by charity which comes to us from the glorious Cross of the Lord.”

Following the Creation of new Cardinals, Pope Benedict announced that this coming 21st of October the date of canonization of seven new saints, including Blessed Marianne Cope and Kateri Tekakwitha – the first Native American to be declared Blessed by the Church. [www.news.va