What Pope Francis did was to defy the conservative voices of the Vatican by naming 17 moderate Cardinals who have histories of working with Syrian refugees, the poor, and those forgotten or ignored by the church for years.
One is Indianapolis Archbishop Joseph Tobin. When Governor Mike Pence issued a ban on Syrian refugees from settling in Indiana, Tobin defied the ban, and:
In December, Pence said he would not enforce his call to ban Syrian refugees one day after Tobin announced a Syrian family had arrived in Indianapolis. Since then about 150 Syrians have resettled in Indiana.
Another is Archbishop Mario Zenari, the pope's envoy in Syria
Zenari belongs to a grand tradition in Vatican diplomacy of refusing to leave one’s post when things get rough. It was the same instinct that led the future Cardinal Fernando Filoni to remain in Baghdad in 2003 as American bombs began to fall, after every other Western official had fled the city, and declare that staying in place was “nothing exceptional.”
Likewise Zenari has refused to abandon Syria, saying two years ago, “how could a representative of the pope flee the place where they need him most?”
As a result, by making Zenari a cardinal, Francis is not only honoring his personal courage, but also clearly expressing his solidarity and support for the people of Syria struggling with the fallout from their ongoing war. The pope said as much in his announcement of the new cardinals on Sunday, referring to Zenari as his envoy to “beloved and martyred Syria.”
and the Rev. Ernest Troshani Simoni of Albania.
Simoni, who turns 88 later this month, brought Francis to tears when he recounted his life story to the pope during Francis' 2014 visit to Tirana: the two decades he spent imprisoned, tortured and sentenced to forced labor for refusing to speak out against the Catholic Church during Albania's brutal communist rule.
After embracing Simoni that day, Francis said: "Today I touched martyrs."
Pope Francis cares, and he is doing something about it.