Pope Benedict XVI celebrates mass with new cardinals

Pope Benedict XVI celebrated a mass on Sunday with six new Cardinals from Colombia, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, the Philippines and the US.

The pontiff elevated the six on Saturday during a formal ceremony, responding to criticism from the club of churchmen that will choose his successor, that he is too Eurocentric.

The pope welcomed the prelates into the College of Cardinals during a long mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

US cardinal James Michael Harvey thanked the pontiff, making an emotional speech during the service.

James Harvey was the American prefect of the papal household and as prefect, Harvey was the direct superior of the Pope's former butler, Paolo Gabriele.

He is currently serving an 18 month prison sentence in a Vatican jail for stealing the Pope's private papers and leaking them to a reporter in the greatest Vatican security breach in modern times.

The Vatican spokesman has denied Harvey, 63, from Milwaukee, is leaving because of the scandal.

But on the day the pope announced Harvey would be made cardinal, he also said he would leave the Vatican to take up duties as the archpriest of one of the Vatican's four Roman basilicas.

Even with the new additions the College of Cardinals remains heavily European.

Of the 120 cardinals under the age of 80 and thus eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope, more than half - 62 - are European.

Critics have complained that the "princes of the church" no longer represent the Catholic Church today, since Catholicism is growing in Asia and Africa but is in crisis in much of Europe.

The issue of numbers is significant since these are the men who will elect the next pope from within their ranks.

While there's no rule that papal ballots are cast along geographic lines, the new cardinals do give an eventual conclave a slightly more multinational air:

Latin America, which boasts half of the world's Catholics, now has 21 voting-age cardinals; North America, 14; Africa, 11; Asia, 11; and Oceania, one.