Pope Francis names 21 new cardinals

Pope Francis delivers the Angelus noon prayer in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Sunday.

Gregorio Borgia/AP

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday announced he has chosen 21 new cardinals, including prelates from Jerusalem and Hong Kong — places where Catholics are a small minority — as he continues to leave his mark on the body of churchmen who will select his successor.

The pope announced his picks during his customary weekly appearance to the public in St. Peter’s Square, saying the ceremony to formally install the churchmen as cardinals will be held on Sept. 30.

Among those tapped are several prelates holding or about to assume major Vatican posts, including the archbishop from La Plata, Argentina, Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández, 59, whom the pope just named to lead the Holy See’s powerful office for ensuring doctrinal orthodoxy and overseeing processing of allegations of sexual abuse against clergy worldwide.

The new cardinals also include Hong Kong Bishop Stephen Sau-yan Chow, 64, and the Vatican’s top official in the Middle East, Monsignor Pierbattista Pizzaballa, 58, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Those two churchmen guide flocks in geopolitical areas of keen concern to the Vatican.

On Sunday, in remarks preceding his reading out of the list of new cardinals, Pope Francis expressed hope that Israeli and Palestinian authorities would take up “direct dialogue” to end the “spiral of violence” — a reference to recent deadly clashes.

Francis repeatedly has cited the hardships of the Christian minority in the Middle East in recent decades.

In an interview in April with The Associated Press,…