Among the Catholic Church’s most senior officials charged with selecting a new pontiff following the death of Pope Francis will be a 45-year-old Australian cardinal.
Ukrainian-born Mykola Bychok, a bishop in Melbourne, was elevated to the position of cardinal by Francis last year.
He will be part of a centuries-old ritual involving sacred oaths by the cardinals electing a successor.
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Bychok is Australia’s sole cardinal and the youngest in the entire church.
Only cardinals under age 80 are eligible, and current regulations limit the number of electors to 120.
Speaking after Francis’ death, Bychok called him a “pope of peace” who was filled with a sense of piety.
“In a world devastated by war he called for peace and justice,” Bychok said.
“I am grateful for the late Holy Father’s frequent appeals for a just peace in Ukraine and for the efforts of the Holy See that he oversaw, known and secret, that in some way helped bring relief to the imprisoned and suffering.
“The Holy Father was a strong defender of life and the dignity of every person.
“He worked for the healing of divisions between East and West and for a greater understanding of other faiths, building on that which we have in common rather than our differences.”
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According to The Catholic Leader newspaper, Cardinal Bychok was born on February 13, 1980 in Ternopil, a city in western Ukraine.
He made his lifelong vows in August 2003, and was ordained a priest on May 3, 2005.
Bychok later became abbot of a Ukrainian monastery and a parish priest in the north-eastern US.
In January 2020, Pope Francis appointed him as the new Bishop of the Diocese of Saints Peter and Paul in Melbourne of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Australia.
Bychok was installed as a cardinal during a Vatican ceremony last October, along with 21 other high-ranking church officials.
Throughout his recent rise in the church hierarchy, he continued to condemn Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Bychok was heading to the Middle East on a pilgrimage but will make his way to Rome as soon as practicable.
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According to the most recently updated Vatican statistics, there were 136 cardinals under age 80 and eligible to vote, though that number may change before the conclave begins.
Those over 80 can’t vote but can participate in pre-conclave meetings, known as general congregations, in which church problems are discussed.
It was in these meetings in 2013 that the future Pope Francis, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, spoke about the need for the church to go to the “existential peripheries” to find those who suffer — an off-the-cuff speech that helped his election.
The process of electing a new pope involves the piercing of ballots with a needle and thread after they’re counted, and then burning them to produce either the white or black smoke to signal if there’s a new leader for the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics.
– With Associated Press
