VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis warned against what he called a “virus of polarization” and hostility in the world targeting people with different nationalities, races or beliefs, as he led a ceremony Saturday giving the Roman Catholic Church 17 new cardinals from six continents.

The consistory ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica formally inducted the churchmen into the cardinals’ ranks.

Francis used his homily to caution the new “princes of the church,” as cardinals are sometimes called, to guard against animosity creeping into the church as well, saying “we are not immune from this.”

The pope spoke of “our pitiful hearts that tend to judge, divide, oppose and condemn,” and cautioned somberly against those who “raise walls, build barriers and label people.”

Earlier this year, when asked about the plan by Donald Trump, then a Republican U.S. presidential candidate and now president-elect, to build a wall to keep Mexicans from entering the U.S., the pope replied that anyone advocating building walls isn’t a Christian.

In Saturday’s homily, Francis commented how “we see, for example, how quickly those among us with the status of the stranger, an immigrant, or a refugee, become a threat, take on the status of an enemy.”


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