Pope names new cardinals, putting stamp on church

Pope Benedict XVI put his stamp on the future of the Roman Catholic Church on Wednesday by naming 24 new cardinals, including 20 who are under 80 and thus eligible to enter a secret conclave to elect his successor.

The 20 new 'cardinal electors' come from Italy, Poland, Egypt, the United States, Germany, Zambia, Ecuador, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Brazil and Sri Lanka.

Europeans have a small majority in an eventual conclave as only 11 of the new electors are European and eight of them are Italian.

The Germany-born pope has now named about 50 of the 120 electors who can pick his successor from among their own ranks, raising the possibility that the next pontiff will be a conservative in Benedict's own image. More than 60 of them are Europeans.

Many of the appointments were expected, including Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, DC, Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz of Warsaw, and Archbishop Raymundo Damasceno Assis of Aparecida, Brazil.