Pope Francis announces 21 new cardinals – including a Swiss Pope Francis announces 21 new cardinals – including a Swiss

At the end of September, Pope Francis wants to make 21 clergy cardinals, including the Valais archbishop Emil Paul Tscherrig. 18 of these clergy will be eligible to vote in a possible conclave, the head of the Catholic Church announced.

All cardinals under the age of 80 can attend the papal elections. Among the new cardinals is the Argentine Victor Manuel Fernández, who will head the powerful Department of the Faith in the future. As in previous years, Francis increasingly opts for bishops and archbishops from non-European countries, such as Tanzania, Malaysia, South Sudan, China and South Africa.

This time there is also someone from the German-speaking area: Emil Paul Tscherrig from Valais, who has been the first non-Italian nuncio (Vatican ambassador) to Italy and San Marino since 2017, is also made a cardinal. The 76-year-old Tscherrig was born the eldest of eight children in Unterems in Oberwallis. He was ordained a priest in 1974 and received his doctorate from the Pontifical Gregorian University.

John Paul II appointed him to the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1978. In 1996 he was appointed Apostolic Nuncio to Burundi by John Paul II. In the decades that followed, he served as Papal Nuncio on several continents, including Argentina in 2012. At the time, the current Pope was Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

Among Francis’s elect is also the Bishop of Hong Kong (China), Stephen Sau-yan Chow. The so-called church council is scheduled for September 30 in Rome. (sda/dpa)