Maeda to Become Vatican’s 6th Japanese Cardinal

May 21, 2018

Paris- Pope Francis said on Sunday that he will appoint Japanese Archbishop Manyo Maeda and 13 others as new cardinals.

The 14 cardinals will be created at a consistory on June 29, Francis said in a speech in Vatican City's St. Peter's Square.

Cardinals are the Vatican's second highest-ranking clerics after the pope. Maeda, 69, will be the sixth Japanese cardinal on record.

Maeda, who is from the southwestern Japan prefecture of Nagasaki, has been serving as the archbishop of Osaka, western Japan, since 2014.

He will be among some 120 cardinals under 80 worldwide and therefore eligible to participate in an eventual conclave to choose Francis' successor, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Japan said.

Pope Francis' choices for new cardinals come from several countries, including Japan, Pakistan and Poland. A U.S. Catholic media outlet quoted Francis as saying the choices show the universality of the Church. Jiji Press