A Triumph for World/Global Christianity

Today the Pope announced a special session to install a number of new cardinals. Cardinals are bishops who have the special faculty of coming together as a college to choose a new pope when there is such a need (normally when he dies, and after a certain age they can no longer vote). Check out this fantastic list. I really think it shows Christians around the world that the Catholic Church is global (as are so many other Churches increasingly). This makes me happy:

• Archbishop James Harvey, 63, the Milwaukee-born prefect of the Papal Household;
• Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai, 72, the Lebanon-based head of the worldwide, 5 million-member Maronite church;
• Major Archbishop Basilios Cleemis, 53, head of India's Syro-Malankara church – the first hierarch from the 600,000-member community to receive the red hat (and, by two years, set to become the youngest cardinal);
• Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja (Nigeria), 68
• Archbishop Ruben Salazar Gomez of Bogotá, 70
• Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila, 55; head of Asia's largest diocese

HT to Whispers in the Loggia. And Kudos to the Successor of Peter, who still has not read my letter to him I think.

BTW, the College of Cardinals is the oldest existing democratic institution in the world. See how you learn awesome stuff on this blog? 

--Abu Daoud