Cardinals from around the world will participate in the conclave — a meeting in which the College of Cardinals gathers to elect a new pope — starting May 7 at the Vatican. The 133 cardinals who are under age 80 will be electors. Thirty-three of these Cardinal electors are members of religious orders. Among this latter group are four Jesuits, all appointed by Pope Francis: Stephen Chow, SJ; Michael Czerny, SJ, Jean-Claude Hollerich, SJ, and Ángel Sixto Rossi, SJ. (Five additional Jesuit cardinals are over the age of 80 and will therefore not be participating in the conclave: Pedro Ricardo Barreto Jimeno, SJ, Julius Riyadi Darmaatmadja, SJ, Gianfranco Ghirlanda, SJ, Luis Ladaria Ferrer, SJ, and Sigitas Tamkevičius, SJ.)
Read on to learn more about the upcoming conclave’s Jesuit Cardinal electors.
Cardinal Stephen Chow, SJ, who was made a cardinal in 2023, has served as the Bishop of Hong Kong since 2021.
Born in Hong Kong, he earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Minnesota and entered the Society of Jesus in 1984. Before becoming Bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Chow served as supervisor of two Jesuit colleges in Hong Kong and as provincial of the Chinese Province of the Society of Jesus.
In April 2023, Cardinal Chow visited the Archdiocese of Beijing, the first visit by a Hong Kong bishop since 1985. “One of my dreams … is to have bishops, fathers and faithfuls from four cross-strait societies to pray together,” he said later that year, referring to Hong Kong, Macao, mainland China and Taiwan. He visited China again in 2024.
Cardinal Chow was a synod delegate at both Rome assemblies of the Synod on Synodality and described synodality as “a dream that we want to come true.”
“I hope it will change the church — I’m not talking about the holy tradition — that it makes the church more relevant to the world, more relevant to fellow Catholics, so that they see they’re part of the church, and the church is part of them. But all that will take some time of learning and adjusting.”
Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, was made a cardinal in 2019.
Born in the former Czechoslovakia, his family moved to Montreal when he was 2, and he graduated from Loyola High School there before entering the Society of Jesus. He received a doctorate in human sciences, social thought and theology from the University of Chicago in 1978.
He founded the Jesuit Centre (now the Forum) for Faith and Justice in Toronto in 1979; served as director of the Institute for Human Rights at the University of Central America in El Salvador after six Jesuits and two lay people were assassinated there in 1989; was secretary of the Secretariat for Social Justice at the Jesuits’ General Curia in Rome for 10 years; founded and directed the African Jesuit Aids Network; and served as a consultant to the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
As prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, he has called for welcoming and protecting migrants. During a press conference for the 2024 World Day of Migrants and Refugees, Cardinal Czerny said, “If we experienced similar pressures,” such as war, poverty, natural disasters or other crises, “we would flee, too.”
“Often propaganda or ideologies give the impression that a forced migrant, refugee or displaced person is (on the move) for pleasure, for an adventure. This is false, false, false.”
Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, SJ, Archbishop of Luxembourg since 2011, was made a cardinal in 2019. He is relator general of the Synod on Synodality and served on Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals, a group of cardinals of appointed by Francis to serve as his advisers.
Born in Differdange, Luxembourg, he entered the Society in 1981 and served in Japan, teaching at Sophia University for 17 years, before returning to Luxembourg when he was appointed archbishop.
When asked about how the Synod on Synodality might affect the church, he said:
“We used to have a very clerical church, with priests and religious as the main players. The rest followed what they were told. When I was a child, I remember the parish priest visiting people’s homes and telling them which magazines they should subscribe to. We did it without discussion. Today, there aren’t enough parish priests to visit homes.
Above all, we need to understand that Christians are not objects but subjects of the Gospel and evangelization. The grace of baptism must be lived out creatively and actively. People will come back to the church if, when they meet Christians, they ask themselves: ‘What’s their secret?’”
Cardinal Ángel Sixto Rossi, SJ, Archbishop of Córdoba and an Argentine Jesuit and friend of Pope Francis, was made a cardinal in 2023.
In 1976, he entered the Society of Jesus in Argentina when Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, SJ, was provincial. In the early 1990s, Cardinal Rossi served as rector of the Church of El Salvador in Buenos Aires; opened Hogar San José, which serves the homeless; and created the Manos Abiertas Foundation, which provides aid to the poorest and most vulnerable in 10 cities throughout Argentina.
He also served as master of Jesuit novices and superior of the Jesuit community in Córdoba and was a popular retreat leader, preaching the Spiritual Exercises to groups of priests, religious and lay people. In 2021, Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Rossi as Archbishop of Córdoba.
“For all that his pontificate meant, he (Pope Francis) leaves a legacy that hopefully we take, and we do what he carried in his heart,” Cardinal Rossi said in an interview after the pope’s passing.
