Pope John Paul II today named five additional cardinals, in a surprise move a week after naming a record 37 new cardinals ahead of a consistory next month, the Vatican announced.
The five are Bishop Karl Lehmann, the chairman of the German episcopal conference; Ukrainian Bishop Lubomyr Husar; Bolivian Archbishop Julio Terrazas Sandoval; South African Archbishop Wilfrid Fox Napier; and another German, Archbishop of Paderborn Johannes Joachim Degenhart.
The pope also released the names of two cardinals whose identity had been kept secret ("in pectore", or in his heart) for political or other reasons since the last consistory - a formal gathering of cardinals presided over by the pope - in 1998.
They are both archbishops from former Soviet republics: Ukrainian Marian Jaworski and the Latvian Janis Pujats.
The five new positions will be confirmed at a consistory on February 21. They are being created in the College of Cardinals, which will eventually elect John Paul II's successor.
Meanwhile Pope John Paul prayed for people in India and Pakistan hit by a massive earthquake and called on the international community to send aid.
"I invite all to unite their moral and material forces so that the necessary aid is not missing," the Pope said at his regular Sunday mass.
"I pray for the victims and I guarantee my spiritual closeness to the Indian and Pakistani populations hit by such a dreadful disaster."
AFP