Pope Francis continues to make surprise additions to the College of Cardinals with plenty of "firsts," and perhaps the most surprising of those "firsts" this time is just how many cardinal electors there will be.

When the next consistory convenes at the Vatican on Sept. 30, a South Sudanese archbishop -- whose installation met stiff resistance -- will be among the 21 recipients of the red hat.

Pope Francis named 21 new cardinals, including U.S.-born Archbishop Robert F. Prevost, who took the helm at the Dicastery for Bishops in April, and French Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the retired archbishop of Naples, celebrated his 80th birthday June 2 and, consequently, became ineligible to enter a conclave to elect a new pope.

Pope Francis will lead a consistory to install new cardinals on Aug. 27. The 16 new cardinal electors, eligible to vote in the next election of a pope, come from surprising places, and many are involved with people on society’s margins. As observers note, the men this Pope has named princes of the Church often have no pretensions to royalty. They are God’s servants in the vineyard of life.

For many people in Rome, Pope Francis' decision to schedule a consistory to create new cardinals in August was more surprising than the men he chose to receive the red hat.

VATICAN CITY -- One by one 11 senior churchmen, including two U.S. citizens -- Cardinals Wilton D. Gregory of Washington and Silvano M. Tomasi, a former Vatican diplomat -- knelt before Pope Francis to receive their red hats, a cardinal's ring and a scroll formally declaring their new status and assigning them a "titular" church in Rome.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis announced he will create 13 new cardinals Nov. 28, including Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Washington.

ROME -- Cardinal-designate Michael Czerny, a Canadian Jesuit priest who is one of Pope Francis’ point men responsible for the pastoral care and political advocacy for migrants and refugees, calls becoming a cardinal “an intensification” of his ministry.

VATICAN CITY -- After the consistory to create new cardinals in early October, Pope Francis will have chosen more than half of the men who will enter the Sistine Chapel to elect his successor.

The Pope, who is full of surprises, has done it again by announcing that a Canadian Jesuit priest will join 12 archbishops and bishops who will be made cardinals next month in Rome.

VATICAN – Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of a Chilean cardinal who has faced widespread criticism for his handling of cases of clerical sexual abuse in the country.

VATICAN – Pope Francis has confirmed the removal from the priesthood of Theodore E. McCarrick, the 88-year-old former cardinal and archbishop of Washington.

After an extraordinary year of bickering and division in the U.S. Church, some 200 American bishops have listened to Pope Francis and taken a timeout. They gathered in early January for a six-day retreat near Chicago where they were encouraged to be silent and to pray.

ROME – Pope Francis' call for a missionary church that is focused on preaching the Gospel will be the guiding principle of the apostolic constitution that will govern the Roman Curia, the secretary of the Pope's international Council of Cardinals said.