Pope Francis taps Melbourne bishop to be one of 21 new Catholic cardinals

Pope Francis has named the 44-year-old head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Melbourne a cardinal, drawing words of praise from Australia’s Catholic community.

Bishop Mykola Bychok was nominated as a cardinal along with 20 other clergy around the world on Sunday, the pope announced in Rome.

Bishop Mykola Bychok has been nominated as a cardinal by Pope Francis.Credit: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church

Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli said it was a great joy to see Bychok’s appointment after first welcoming him to Melbourne in 2021.

“To come to a new country, and then to face into the devastation for his peoples that the war against Ukraine has brought, has been an enormous challenge. Cardinal-designate Bychok has risen to this challenge with dignity and strength,” Comensoli said.

Cardinals, who are senior members of the church’s hierarchy, have the special role of electing popes when the Holy See is vacant. They fulfil their cardinal duties in addition to existing roles in the church.

Episcopal vicar Andriy Mykytyuk said his colleague’s appointment was a proud moment, and asked for the Catholic community to keep the cardinal-designate in their prayers as he took on the new responsibility.

Pope Francis, pictured last month, has nominated 21 clergy as cardinals.Credit: AP

“He’s a good leader, he’s the youngest Catholic bishop in Australia,” Mykytyuk said.

“It’s really important for us, not just for Ukrainians but for the whole Catholic community.”

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which is in full communion (effectively, in agreement) with the Roman Catholic Church, is headquartered in Kyiv. The nomination of Bychok gave Ukraine its only cardinal and sent a subtle political message as Russia’s war grinds on.

Francis’ decision to appoint new cardinals significantly increases the size of the College of Cardinals and further cements his mark on the group of prelates who will one day elect his successor.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See, Andrii Yurash, praised the nomination even though Francis chose the head of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church in Australia over the Kyiv-based head Sviatoslav Shevchuk.

The group of new cardinals also includes Monsignor Angelo Acerbi, a 99-year-old retired Vatican diplomat who was once held hostage for six weeks in Colombia by leftist guerrillas.

The new cardinals will get their red hats at a ceremony, known as a consistory, on December 8, an important feast day on its own that officially kicks off the Christmas season in Rome.

It will be Francis’ 10th consistory to create new princes of the church and the biggest infusion of voting-age cardinals into the college in Francis’ 11-year pontificate.

Cardinals in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican for the funeral mass for Pope Benedict XVI in 2023.Credit: AP

Usually the college has a limit of 120 voting-age cardinals, but popes often exceed the cap temporarily to keep the body robust as existing cardinals age out.

At September 28, there were 122 cardinal-electors; that means the new infusion brings their number up to 142 (Acerbi is the only one of the new intake who is over 80 and hence too old to vote for new pope).

Among those named by history’s first Latin American pope were the heads of several major dioceses and archdioceses in South America.

Showing the universality of the church around the world, Francis tapped the archbishop of Tehran, Iran, Monsignor Dominique Joseph Mathieu, and the bishop of Bogor, Indonesia, Monsignor Paskalis Bruno Syukor. They both belong to the Franciscan religious order and are two of the four new Franciscan cardinals.

Aside from Asia, Africa is the other region where the church is growing and this was reflected in the nomination of two new cardinals: the archbishop of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Monsignor Ignace Bessi Dogbo, and the bishop of Algiers, Monsignor Jean-Paul Vesco.

“Francis has again continued to extend the reach of the college of cardinals,” said Christopher Bellitto, a church historian at Kean University in New Jersey. “Like his predecessors, but even more so, he’s making sure that Catholic leaders from the church’s edges have a voice at the big table.”

With AP

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