The new cardinals will bring the total number of cardinal electors to 128, of whom 73 will have been appointed by Pope Francis.

Many are wondering after the lack of response by the Vatican to questions raised about what Pope Francis actually said about civil unions.

After being received in private audience by Pope Francis last Monday, Cardinal George Pell concluded an unforgettable week by celebrating his first public Mass in Rome since his return to the Vatican on Sept. 30.

“We’re on the brink,” Cardinal Czerny said, because people are suffering from “a health collapse and an economic collapse, at the same moment as the Paris Climate Agreement I.O.U.s are coming in and there is a migrant situation that is dire.”

Dr. Anna Rowlands told America that Pope Francis "“gets populism. He gets what is the drive toward it and he rescues the notion of what it means to be ‘a people’ from the hands of the populists."

Jude Mohamed Mahmoud Abdel Salem, an advisor to the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, praised Pope Francis as being dedicated to achieving "human fraternity."