Pope Welcomes Mahony, 22 Other New Cardinals in Vatican Ceremony : Religion: The Californian says he hopes to continue with his interests--justice and peace, social communications and migration.

VATICAN CITY —  Vatican masters of ceremony, for whom pageantry comes as naturally as prayer, unfurled all their banners Saturday in a summer spectacular to honor the founding saints of the Roman Catholic Church and to welcome 23 new cardinals from around the world.

With Pope John Paul II presiding from the steps of St. Peter’s Basilica, the new cardinals concelebrated a Mass marking the Feast of Peter and Paul, the patron saints of Rome.

Tens of thousands of Romans and foreign pilgrims transformed St. Peter’s Square into a pastiche of color and religious fervor on a bright and blustery summer evening.

John Paul bestowed on each of the new cardinals a ring that is a symbol of their ecclesiastical authority and their obedience to the church.

“Receive this ring from the hand of Peter and know that with the love of the prince of the apostles your love toward the church is strengthened,” the Pope told the new cardinals.

Among the new princes of the church in their scarlet finery and tall white miters sat 55-year-old Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles, the state’s first California-born cardinal. The wind whipping his robes, Mahony received his ring at 7:22 p.m., a priest who has gone as far as he can go in his church--but still has a long way to travel.

Given his young age, and the fast-track blend of doctrinal orthodoxy and social concern that helped earn him an early red hat, Mahony would be papabile-- a potential Pope--if he were Italian or Latin American. But he is American, and although he will be entitled to vote for Pope until the year 2016, cardinal is as high as he is apt to climb.

“I think there will never be an American Pope; the cardinals would never vote for one, and rightfully so,” Mahony said Saturday in a shirt-sleeved interview between ceremonies.

“It would place the papacy in a very incongruous situation. Given the superpower position of the United States, if you had an American Pope it would be very difficult to distinguish between the Pope’s agenda and the U.S. foreign agenda. People would be forever trying to figure out who’s in concert or conflict with whom. I think it would be hopeless.”

In his homily at Saturday’s Mass, the 71-year-old John Paul noted that the new cardinals are natural inheritors of the tradition of St. Peter, the first Pope.

They will “participate not only as the electors of the successor of St. Peter but also as the senate and council,” John Paul said.

John Paul’s successor will undoubtedly come from the College of Cardinals that Mahony and 22 other prelates from six continents officially joined Friday.

“I don’t know whether the next Pope will be Italian, but one of the next few will be a Latin American. That is where nearly half of the world’s Catholics and many cardinals are from,” Mahony observed.

For their part, Vatican specialists surveying the current crop of cardinals have already penciled in new Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez of the Dominican Republic as a potential 21st-Century Pope. He’s 54, and president of the Latin American Bishops’ Conference.

Mahony’s own pastoral future, he said, is in Los Angeles, where he can serve as the leader of America’s largest archdiocese until he reaches the retirement age of 75 in 2011.

“There is no place in the world that is not part of Los Angeles. The city reflects the universality of the church,” Mahony said, noting that his flock includes natives from all of the 15 countries the new cardinals represent.

For Mahony, Saturday’s extravaganza, part of a long, red-trimmed week at the Vatican, was more than just ceremony. At Friday’s consistory to name the new cardinals, Mahony noted, the 23 prelates and the congregation sat facing the Pope. At Saturday’s Mass, the new cardinals sat facing worshipers in the huge square.

“Today the Pope and his cardinals were facing the people--the world. It’s a wonderful image. Today it became real in terms of our mission. We are to take the Gospel and go now to our people.”

His promotion will mean new overseer posts for Mahony in Vatican ministries, but he said he hopes to remain on Vatican commissions where he currently serves and in which he has a special interest: justice and peace, social communications and migration.

“What we do as Catholics in the social field has got to become clearer. Why we are concerned about the homeless, the undocumented and the poor isn’t just humanitarian. We are reaching to people not only in terms of their human need but also because of the creative image of God that we believe we see in every person,” Mahony said. “I think that is where deeper evangelization would be very helpful. I think we may have been very good at the social part of it without being clear about the why,” he added.

In coming days, Mahony, accompanied by his 85-year-old mother, Loretta, and 22 members of his immediate family, including a twin brother, will make pilgrims’ rounds.

This morning, Mahony takes formal possession of Santissimi Quattro Coronati, the 4th-Century basilica in downtown Rome that will be his titular church. On Monday, he celebrates a Mass in St. Peter’s honoring Blessed Junipero Serra, the Spanish missionary who may become California’s first saint. On Tuesday, Mahony travels to Assisi for a Mass celebrating the Feast of Our Lady of the Angels--Nuestra Senora de los Angeles. After a Mass at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside-the-Walls on Wednesday, Mahony returns to Los Angeles on July 4.

He left as an archbishop and returns as cardinal to the same job with a fresh eye.

“I see myself going back much more filled with zeal, looking for even more creative ways to voice the Gospel.

“It will not be a new mission in the sense of something grander, but there will be a freshness, almost a new aggressiveness for the Gospel and for Christ,” he said.