Iraqis hope papal visit can help unify country's diverse communities
- Mar 2, 2021
As Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory’s car pulled up to the Archdiocesan Pastoral Center in Hyattsville Dec. 3, about three dozen employees greeted him with applause, welcoming him home to the Archdiocese of Washington.
On Nov. 28, Pope Francis elevated 13 new cardinals from around the world to the College of Cardinals at a consistory in Rome. Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory, who has been Washington’s archbishop since 2019, was among them.
Pope Francis created 13 new cardinals Saturday, including nine cardinals eligible to vote for the next pope and the first African-American cardinal in the history of the United States, Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C.
The Vatican’s Santa Marta hotel was built to sequester cardinals during papal elections. It’s now sequestering soon-to-be cardinals in town for this weekend’s ceremony to get their red hats: A handful are in protective coronavirus quarantine, confined to their rooms on Vatican orders and getting meals delivered to their doors.
Cardinal-designate Paolo Lojudice’s work in Rome’s rough outskirts earned him such titles as “street priest,” “bishop of the Roma” community, and Pope Francis even told him the word was that he was the toughest bishop in the capital.
“I am a pastor,” Cardinal-designate Enrico Feroci, 80, said after Pope Francis announced he would make him a cardinal. “I hope to continue being a pastor.”