VATICAN CITY, JAN. 28, 2001 (Zenit.org).-
Only a week after naming 37 new cardinals, John Paul II today announced five more princes of the Church, as well as two appointments he made secretly in 1998.
At noon the smiling Pope made the surprise announcement from his studio window overlooking St. Peter´s Square. Without further explanation, he said that «for different reasons» he did not publish their names last week.
The five new cardinals comprise two from Germany and one each from South Africa, Bolivia and Ukraine. The two named secretly — «in pectore» — are from Ukraine and Latvia.
One is Latin-rite Archbishop Marian Jaworski of Lviv, Ukraine, 74. A theologian and man of great spirituality, he has been the Latin archbishop of Lviv since 1991, and a personal friend of Karol Wojtyla since they were young priests. When he comes to Rome, he stays in the apartment above the Pope´s.
The other «in pectore» cardinal is Archbishop Janis Pujats of Riga, Latvia. Latvia is a country of fewer than 2.5 million inhabitants, whose 400,000 Catholics kept the faith despite annexation to the Soviet Union and the ensuing persecutions.
Archbishop Pujats will be 71 in November. He has been a priest since 1951, and has headed the Diocese of Riga for a decade.
The Holy Father explained that on Jan. 21 he also had «in pectore» — in his heart — the names of the other five bishops whom today he designated to be made cardinals next month.
These five are:
—Eastern-rite Archbishop Lubomyr Husar of Lviv, leader of the Greek-Catholics, who suffered Stalin´s harshest persecutions. Archbishop Husar is the only one of the 44 cardinals-to-be singled out for a personal comment by the Pope.
«In his person,» the Holy Father said, «as in that of the prelates mentioned earlier, I try to honor the respective Churches, which, especially in the course of the 20th century, were severely tried and have offered the world an example of so many Christian men and women who have known how to witness to their faith in the midst of sufferings of all kinds, often culminating with the sacrifice of their life.»
Archbishop Husar succeeds Cardinal Miroslav Ivan Lubachivski, who died at 86 on Dec. 14, and was the leader of the rebirth of Greek-Catholics after this Church recovered its liberty under perestroika. The Pope is due to visit Ukraine in June.
—Archbishop Julio Terrazas Sandoval of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, 64, president of the Bolivian bishops´ conference. He increases to 11 the number of Latin American cardinals who will be created in the consistory Feb. 21.
—Archbishop Wilfrid Fox Napier of Durban, South Africa, who will be 60 in March. Archbishop Napier, a Franciscan, was president of the South African Conference of Bishops in the critical years when the country abolished apartheid (1987-1994) and elected its first black president, Nelson Mandela.
During that time, the archbishop was one of the country´s great heralds of human rights. Since 1998 Archbishop Napier has been consultor of the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
—Bishop Karl Lehmann of Mainz, 64, president of the German bishops´ conference. In recent years he sought John Paul II´s decision on the delicate question of assistance in Catholic Consultation Centers to pregnant women contemplating abortion. The centers granted a certificate, which indirectly became the necessary requisite for women to obtain legal abortions. This practice stirred controversy among Catholics, leading Archbishop Lehmann to submit the issue to the Holy See.
—Archbishop Johannes Joachim Degenhardt of Paderborn, 74. He has given public testimony of his support for John Paul II´s magisterium, maintaining an extremely clear position in defense of innocent life.
The back-to-back weekly announcements were a first for John Paul II. He acknowledged he was breaking the limit of 120 cardinal-electors set by Paul VI. As of the Feb. 21 consistory, the Church will have 135 possible participants in a conclave to elect a new pope.
