Pope to appoint six new cardinals

VATICAN CITY, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- Pope Benedict XVI will create positions for six new cardinals in the Catholic Church's College of Cardinals, the Vatican announced.

The new appointments will bring the number of members to 120, the Italian news agency ANSA reported Friday, and will bring a more international face to the ecclesiastic body that advises the pope when he calls them to convene, called a consistory, and chooses a replacement upon his death.

The pope said he wanted to "complete" the consistory held in February in "a gesture of the church's universality, in demonstration that the church is the church of all people, that it speaks all languages."

The new members are James Harvey of the United States, 63, the current Prefect of the Pontifical Household; Bechara Boutros Rai, 72, of Lebanon, the Patriarch of Antioch; Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, 53, of India, the archbishop of Trivandrum; John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, 68, of Nigeria, the archbishop of Abuja; Ruben Salazar Gomez, 70, of Colombia, the archbishop of Bogota; and Luis Antonio Tagle, 55, of the Philippines, the archbishop of Manila.