The Pope’s Council of Cardinals, intended to have nine members, has not been at that number recently but the Holy Father today new members and confirmed several previous ones.
There was some interesting news from the Vatican Museums today. Vatican officials, meeting with Greek officials in the museums, returned to Greece three fragments of sculptures that have been in the Vatican for several centuries. Museums in a number of countries, in fact, have works of art from Greece, Egypt, Italy and elsewhere and these museums have been asking, for years in some cases, that the art works to be returned to the original owners. Let’s see if this act stimulates others to follow in Vatican footsteps.
POPE FRANCIS ADDS HOLLERICH AND FOUR OTHER CARDINALS TO HIS COUNCIL OF ADVISERS
(CNA – Courtney Mares) – Pope Francis appointed five new members to his council of cardinals advisers on Tuesday, including Synod organizer Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich and Canadian Cardinal Gérald C. Lacroix.
The Vatican announced on March 7 the nine members of Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals tasked with assisting the pope “in the governance of the universal Church.”
The pope has nominated Brazilian Cardinal Sérgio da Rocha, Spanish Cardinal Juan José Omella Omella, and Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, the president of the Governorate of Vatican City State, to be new members of the council, along with Hollerich and Lacroix.
With the new appointments, Honduran Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, 80, and Germany’s Cardinal Reinhard Marx, 69, are no longer members of the Council of Cardinals. Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, the 80-year-old retired president of the Governorate of Vatican City State, has been replaced by his successor.
TO CONTINUE: Pope Francis adds Hollerich and four other cardinals to his council of advisers | Catholic News Agency
VATICAN RETURNS 3 FRAGMENTS OF PARTHENON TO GREECE
A Holy See communiqué today announced that a deed of donation was signed in the Vatican Museums this morning that gives three fragments from the Parthenon back to Greece. This was desired by Pope Francis “as a concrete sign of the sincere desire to continue on the ecumenical path of bearing witness to the Truth.”
The ceremony in the Gregorian Profane Museum was attended by Cardinal Fernando Vérgez Alzaga, president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State and the Governorate of Vatican City State, Papamikroulis Emmanouil, who represented His Beatitude Ieronymos II, Archbishop of Athens and All Greece; Styliani-Lina Mendoni, Minister of Culture and Sport of the Hellenic Republic, and Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums. (Vatican media)
On March 24, a representative of the Dicastery for Christian Unity will attend the ceremony in Athens occassioned by the arrival of the fragments.
Joan's Rome 