Six New Cardinals Born or Serving in Asia

With the creation of six new cardinals for Asia on 27 August, the number of cardinals born or carrying out their ministry in Asia rises to 21 among the 132 electors who could be called to take part in a conclave for the election of a pontiff.

This reflects the two priorities of Pope Francis, namely, evangelization and attention to the peripheries.

18 Asian countries now have one or more cardinals, and 15 Asian countries have Cardinal electors in a conclave.  Asia has altogether 31 cardinals, ten of them being above the age of being an elector. While Vietnam and Hong Kong lost, Singapore, Timor-Leste and Mongolia have gained. India now has the highest number of cardinals in Asia.

Some of them are relatively young and from relatively smaller countries and towns. The Apostolic Vicar of Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, Giorgio Marengo will enter the College of Cardinals at the age of 48, while Archbishop Virgilio do Carmo da Silva of Dili (Timor Leste) is just 54.

RVA News has prepared a brief profile of each of the new Cardinals from or for Asia.

Cardinal Virgílio do Carmo da Silva, 54, is archbishop of Díli, Timor-Leste — an island nation in Southeast Asia and Asia’s second-most Catholic country after the Philippines.

Born in Venilale, Timor-Leste, in 1967, completed his education in Manila, Philippines. He was ordained priest in 1998, after licentiate in spirituality from the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome. While he was serving as the provincial superior of the Salesians of Don Bosco in East Timore, he was appointed bishop of Dili 2016.

As the first cardinal in a primarily Catholic nation, he believes the appointment is a gift from God to the Timorese people and church. Even though the number of Catholics and vocations remain high, the faithful confront numerous challenges, including severe unemployment, "brain drain," and proselytism by groups like Jehovah's Witnesses. The Salesian cardinal has pledged to reinvent the role and mission of the Catholic Church, which acted as a strong political voice throughout the nation's freedom movement under Indonesia's 24-year occupation. After extremists devastated its infrastructure, the small country is still attempting to rebuild.

Responding to the pastoral needs of the people, he stated that the focus must now be on education, re-evangelization, proximity to the people, and discerning and meeting their needs. In addition, he wishes to reinforce people's faith through on education, re-evangelization, being close to the people and discerning and responding to their needs. His role as a shepherd for the new nation places families, children, and youth at the heart of his mission to spread the Gospel.

Cardinal William Goh Seng Chye, 64, is Singapore’s first cardinal. He will be the sole ethnic Chinese prelate among the cardinal electors.

Born to Chinese parents Singapore in 1957, he was ordained priest in 1985 after studies in Singapore and at the Pontifical Urbanian University in Rome. Later studied dogmatic theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He became the Archbishop of Singapore in 2013. From 2015 to 2021, he was Episcopal President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei (MSB) for the Apostleship of the Sea.

Serving 360,000 Catholics in Singapore, he set up the first ten years of the archdiocese's pastoral vision that focused on four key thrusts: to rekindle faith, renew people, revitalize outreach, and refresh structures.

The elevation of the archbishop of Singapore to the College of Cardinals reflects "the small but very active" role the church plays in a country where Catholics are a minority but are very much involved with the local and immigrant communities. He considers himself "just an ordinary man" and said he is “deeply humbled by this new appointment of the Holy Father” and “is conscious that this honor and new responsibility”.

South Korean Cardinal Lazarus You Heung-sik became prefect of the then-Congregation for Clergy in 2021, making him the second prelate from Asia to head a Vatican office. Before that he had served as president of the Justice and Peace Committee of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea.

Born in Nonsan, Chungcheongnam-do Province, South Korea in 1957, he was ordained a priest on December 8, 1979, after studies in South Korea and Rome. He was named coadjutor bishop of Daejeon in 2003 and later bishop. As bishop of Daejeon, he welcomed Pope Francis to the city for the sixth Asian Youth Day in 2014 and took part in the Synod of Bishops on young people in 2018.

He was president of Caritas Korea and coordinated with North Korean government a major aid program with assistance from Caritas International. Caritas Korea helped approximately 5 million poor North Koreans. He traveled to communist North Korea four times and has said he hopes for lasting peace and reconciliation on the peninsula.

Indian Cardinal Anthony Poola of Hyderabad is the first Dalit cardinal and the first cardinal of the Telugu people from the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. “Dalit,” – untouchables - refers to the most disadvantaged group of people under India’s former caste system, often still treated with disrespect today, including in the church at times. His appointment was “good news for Dalit Catholics and for the entire church in India.

Born on November 15, 1961, in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh, Archbishop Anthony Poola of Hyderabad was ordained a priest on February 20, 1992, and was appointed bishop of Kurnool on February 8, 2008. He assumed office on April 19, 2008. He is the chairman of the Andhra Pradesh Bishops' Conference's youth commission. He was named the Archbishop of Hyderabad on November 19, 2020.

He said that the Pope's efforts to reach out to those on the peripheries are reflected in the fact that he was made a cardinal. He thinks being a cardinal lets him be compassionate and merciful shepherd for the poor and Dalits. In his ministry, the archbishop will prioritize social service as he describes his mission as "helping as many poor children as possible, and reflects on serving India’s poorest and often-forgotten "untouchables."

Cardinal Filipe Neri Ferrão, 69, is archbishop of Goa, the first cardinal of the 265-year-old archdiocese. Goa is a former Portuguese colony and now an Indian state.

He is president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) — the national episcopal conference of the bishops of the Latin rite of the Catholic Church in India — and is a member of the central committee of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences.

Born on January 20, 1953, in Aldona, he studied at the seminary in Poona and was ordained a diocesan priest in 1979. He has degrees in biblical theology from the Pontifical Urbanian University and in catechesis and pastoral theology at the Lumen Vitae International Institute in Belgium.

He became auxiliary bishop of Goa in 1993, and was named archbishop of Goa in 2003 with the traditional title “Patriarch of the East Indies” by St. John Paul II.

His pastoral and social concern is evident in his pastoral letter on charity and the social responsibilities of his archdiocese, he wrote, "While India is struck by extreme poverty, 73% of our country’s resources are controlled by 10% of the population. The existing extreme poverty is, therefore, the result of the rampant social injustice prevailing in the country.”

Cardinal Giorgio Marengo IMC is the apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Born in 1974 and aged just 48, he is the youngest of the new cardinals and will be the youngest member of the College of Cardinals.

Mongolia has only just over 1,300 Catholics and pope’s choice reflects his attention and care to the small communities of faithful scattered throughout the world.

Although he had met Pope Francis May 28 with a delegation of Mongolian Buddhist leaders, the pope’s announcement on May 29 was a complete surprise. “We talked of many things, but he said nothing at all about this,” he told Fides.