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Omaha's Blase Cupich elevated to cardinal

Chicago Archbishop and Omaha's own Blase Cupich becomes a Cardinal in this ceremony.
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Chicago's Archbishop and Omaha native Blase Cupich elevated to cardinal by Pope Francis during a ceremony in Vatican City on Saturday. 

Blase Cupich was ordained a priest  in Omaha back in 1975.   He's an Omaha native with a long history of serving the catholic church in the area.

 

After being made a cardinal at Saturday's ceremony, Cupich told the Associated Press that the church has a special role in trying to bring people together across the political spectrum.

He noted that on Sunday, Masses are celebrated in 26 languages in his diocese. "People feel disenfranchised" from sharing in the common good, the cardinal told AP.

Pope Francis also has decried what he calls a surge of polarization in the world while welcoming 17 new cardinals from five continents.

During Saturday's ceremony  in St. Peter's Basilica to formally induct the prelates into the cardinals' ranks, Francis lamented how immigrants, refugees, and people of different races or faiths are increasingly seen as enemies.
 
Francis cautioned somberly against those who "raise walls, build barriers and label people."
 
In his homily, the pope said: "We live at a time in which polarization and exclusion are burgeoning and considered the only way to resolve conflicts."
 
Among new cardinals pledging loyalty to the pope are churchmen from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and North and South America. Their homelands include Papua New Guinea, Albania, Mauritius and Lesotho, Malaysia, Venezuela, Mexico and the United States.
 
 

 

Copyright 2016 Scripps Media, Inc. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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