Unique' & 'All-Inclusive': Pope Benedict XVI Appoints 6 New Cardinals From Around the World to Help Choose Successor

Pope Benedict XVI arrives at the altar to lead holy mass at Antonio Maceo Square in Santiago de Cuba, March 26, 2012. (Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images)

VATICAN CITY (TheBlaze/AP) -- Six new cardinals on Saturday joined the elite club of red-robed churchmen who will elect the next pope, bringing a more geographically diverse mix into the European-dominated College of Cardinals.

Pope Benedict XVI presided over the ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica to formally elevate the six men, who hail from Colombia, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, the Philippines, and the United States. As Benedict read each name aloud in Latin, cheers and applause erupted from their friends and family members in the pews.

The ceremony was both joyful and emotional: Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle, seen by many to be a rising star in the church, visibly choked up as he knelt before Benedict to receive his three-pointed red hat, or biretta, and gold ring, and wiped tears from his eyes as he returned to his place.

Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle

Abuja, Nigeria Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, meanwhile, seemed to want to sit down and chat with each one of the dozens of cardinals that he greeted in the traditional exchange of peace that follows the formal elevation rite.

Benedict has said that with this "little consistory," he was essentially completing his last cardinal-making ceremony held in February, when he elevated 22 cardinals, the vast majority of them European archbishops.

Benedict said Saturday that the new cardinals represent the "unique, universal and, all-inclusive identity" of the Catholic Church.

"In this consistory, I want to highlight in particular the fact that the church is the church of all peoples, and so she speaks in the various cultures of the different continents," he told the crowd, which included Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, the vice president of the Philippines Jejomar Binay, and lawmakers from India and Nigeria.

Among the six new cardinals is Archbishop James Harvey, the American prefect of the papal household. As prefect, Harvey was the direct superior of the pope's former butler, Paolo Gabriele, who is serving an 18 month prison sentence in a Vatican jail for stealing the pope's private papers and leaking them to a reporter in the greatest Vatican security breach in modern times.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is received by Archbishop James Michael Harvey (R) at the Cortile Cortile di San Damaso for a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI on October 8, 2010 in Vatican City, Vatican. (Getty)

The Vatican spokesman has denied Harvey, 63 from Milwaukee, is leaving because of the scandal. But on the day the pope announced Harvey would be made cardinal, he also said he would leave the Vatican to take up duties as the archpriest of one of the Vatican's four Roman basilicas.

Harvey's departure has led to much speculation about who would replace him in the delicate job of organizing the pope's daily schedule and arranging audiences.

Aside from Harvey, Tagle, and Onaiyekan, the new cardinals are: Bogota, Colombia Archbishop Ruben Salazar Gomez; the Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites in Lebanon, His Beatitude Bechara Boutros Rai; and the major Archbishop of the Trivandrum of the Siro-Malankaresi in India, His Beatitude Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal.

Cardinals serve as the pope's closest advisers, but their main task is to elect a new pope. And with Benedict, 85, slowing down, that task is ever more present. For the second time, the consistory ceremony was greatly trimmed back, lasting just over an hour to spare the pope the fatigue of a lengthy ceremony.

He will, however, celebrate Mass on Sunday with them.

While Benedict didn't mention the cardinals' primary task in his remarks, he did remind them that the scarlet of their cassock and hat that they wear symbolizes the blood that cardinals must be willing to shed to remain faithful to the church.

"From now on you will be even more closely and intimately linked to the See of Peter," he said.

Pope Benedict XVI leads the mass of the opening of the Synod of bishops (Photo: AFP/GETTY)

The six new cardinals are all under age 80. Their nominations bring the number of voting-age cardinals to 120, 67 of whom were named by Benedict.

Saturday's consistory marks the first time in decades that not a single European or Italian has been made a cardinal -- a statistic that has not gone unnoticed in Italy. Italy still has the lions' share of cardinals, though, with 28 voting-age "princes" of the church.

The College of Cardinals remains heavily European even with the new additions: Of the 120 cardinals under age 80 and thus eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope, more than half -- 62 -- are European.

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Front page photo courtesy the AP.