Who are the four Portuguese cardinals who can help choose the new church leader?

For the first time, there are four Portuguese who can help choose the new leader of the Catholic Church, following the death of Francisco, this Monday, at the age of 88.

Portugal currently has six cardinals, but two of them, D. José Saraiva Martins, 93, and D. Manuel Monteiro de Castro, 86 do not vote for the Conclave, which will indicate the name of the new Pope, for being over 80 years.

Thus, the Portuguese cardinals with voting power are D. Américo Aguiar, D. José Tolentino de Mendonça, D. Manuel Clemente and D. António Marto.

Américo Aguiar, 51, is the youngest and what has been a cardinal for a long time, having been raised after having been in charge of the World Youth Day in Lisbon. It has been since September 2023 Bishop of Setúbal. It is from Leça do Balio.

José Tolentino de Mendonça, 59, was chosen by Francisco for mayor of the mayor of Dicastery for culture and education in the Roman Curia. It was close to the Pope and is on the list of the 22 most likely to take on the ‘Peter’s Chair’, that is, the leadership of the Church. It is natural to Madeira.

Manuel Clemente, 76, was a patriarch of Lisbon for over a decade after being a bishop of Porto. He was raised to cardinal in 2015. He is a native of Torres Vedras.

António Marto is the oldest Portuguese voter, 77 years old. He has been a cardinal since 2017. He was a bishop of Leiria-Fatima, Viseu and assisting in Braga. It is from Chaves.

It should be noted that in addition to these four Portuguese Cardinal Cardinal there are nine other Lusophones: Seven Brazilians, one Cape Verdean and a Timorese.