In the sweltering heat and humidity of Rome in August, when most residents of the Eternal City had fled to beaches or mountains, Pope Francis created 20 new cardinals.

Francis doesn’t take holidays. Instead, he used the end of August as an opportunity to both add new members to the College of Cardinals and to bring cardinals from around the world to the Vatican to discuss the new constitution for the Roman Curia.

Prominent among those receiving their red hat was Cardinal Arthur Roche, the Holy See’s liturgy prefect, the third cardinal from England to be appointed by Francis. Not since the late 1880s – the time of cardinals Manning, Newman and Howard – has England had three hats.

Cardinal Roche is one of the Pope’s most trusted collaborators. He has been pushing forward with implementing the Second Vatican Council’s reforms of Catholic worship, and his department has taken a tough line with traditionalist supporters of the old rite. It fell to the new English cardinal to address the Pope at the beginning of the consistory ceremony in St Peter’s Basilica, and he did not miss the opportunity to send a strong message to any anti-Francis elements inside the College of Cardinals. He knows that meetings of cardinals can be turbulent.