2013-04-24       John W                  John W's previous articles

Pope's G8 should be G9?

The 8 cardinals chosen to be Pope Francis' advisors are

• Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello of Italy, President of the Government of the Vatican City State;

• Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa of Chile, the retired archbishop of Santiago;

• Cardinal Oswald Gracias of India, archbishop of Bombay (Mumbai);

• Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the archbishop of Kinshasa;

• Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston;

• Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich;

• Cardinal George Pell of Australia, the archbishop of Sydney;

• Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga of Honduras, the archbishop of Tegucigalpa

That makes 2 from Europe, 1 from South America, 1 from Asia, 1 from Africa, 1 from North America, I from Oceania, and 1 from Central America

Only one from the whole of Asia is not so good.  Asia is home to more than one third of the human family.
Asia has double the population of Africa, double the population of the Americas combined, 
and 100 times the population of Oceania

One from Oceania is way out of balance with one from Asia

In fact, it would have been better to have regarded Oceania as part of South East Asia, and let East Asia - South Asia produce a representative

Cardinal Tagle from the Philippines should be added to the group. He is part Chinese and can be regarded as a representative of China (which has about the same number of Catholics as India, around 15 million, as against 70 million in the Philippines)

Filipinos are the life of the Church in many parts of the world, especially in Asia. They must feel disappointed they don't have a voice on the G8

c.f. A Politburo Papacy?

-------

Comments welcome here