New York Archbishop Dolan elevated to cardinal in Rome ceremony

Feb. 18, 2012: Archbishop of New York Timothy Michael Dolan, center, and John Tong, archbishop of Hong Kong, right, sit inside St. Peter's basilica at the Vatican prior to a consistory. (AP)

VATICAN CITY – New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan has been elevated to cardinal in a ceremony at the Vatican.

Dolan was one of 22 prelates formally welcomed into the elite group in the Roman Catholic Church in a ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica on Saturday.

Cardinals are the pope's key advisers and are members of the group that will eventually elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI. The former Milwaukee archbishop is also president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Dolan gave a lively keynote address to a gathering of the cardinals on Friday in which he spoke about evangelizing in an increasingly secularized world. The meeting was overshadowed by reports of political infighting and leaked documents alleging corruption in the running of the Vatican city state.