Pope Names 30 New Cardinals, Including 2 U.S. Archbishops

VATICAN CITY â€”  Pope John Paul II on Sunday named 30 new cardinals, including the archbishops of Baltimore and Detroit and the first cardinals from Sarajevo and two former East Bloc states.

The Pope’s naming of Vinko Puljic as cardinal from Sarajevo reflects his long support for Bosnia-Herzegovina’s besieged capital, which he had hoped to visit Sept. 8 but could not because of security concerns.

The promotion of churchmen from Albania and the former Soviet republic of Belarus, and the naming of a Czech cardinal, represents an opening to the former Communist countries of the east.

He also named cardinals from Vietnam and Cuba, the first from the Caribbean country under leader Fidel Castro.

Archbishops William Keeler of Baltimore and Adam Maida of Detroit were the Americans selected. The Pope had planned to visit Keeler’s archdiocese this month, but his U.S. visit was postponed due to health problems.

Keeler, 63, is the president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and thus the church’s chief spokesman in the United States. Ordained in 1955, he was an expert adviser to Pope John XXIII at the Second Vatican Council in 1962-65 and was bishop of Harrisburg, Pa., before being named to head the Baltimore archdiocese in 1989.

He has also become an ecumenical diplomat, smoothing relations between Jews and Catholics.

Maida was ordained in Pittsburgh in 1956 and became bishop of Green Bay, Wis., in 1984. The Pope named him head of the 1.5-million-member Detroit archdiocese in 1990.

The pontiff also named Jan Schotte, a Belgian who heads the bishops’ synod, to the post of cardinal. The multilingual Schotte, who has close contacts with cardinals and bishops around the world, is considered the Pope’s close ally.

John Paul made the announcement in his regular Sunday address to the faithful from his window over St. Peter’s Square.

Applause rose among the thousands of people there when the Pope pronounced the Sarajevo archbishop’s name. Puljic, who is 49, is the youngest of all the cardinals.

The announcement Sunday was an important step toward ensuring that one of the Pope’s men will be the next leader of the world’s 950 million Catholics.

When the title of cardinal is bestowed on the 30 men at a Nov. 26 ecclesiastical meeting, John Paul will have filled the 24 openings in the 120-member body of cardinals eligible to choose his successor. Only cardinals under the age of 80 can vote--and six of the 30 new appointees will be older than that by the time of the Nov. 26 ceremony.

In all, 103 of the 120 have been named during the 16 years of his papacy.

The new cardinals, representing 24 countries, “reflect in a significant way the universality of the church with the multiplicity of its ministers,� the Pope said.

But many also share the Pope’s image of a conservative church dedicated to social justice.