consistory of 21 February 2001. He later preached the Lenten spiritual exercises for John Paul II and the Roman Curia in 2002. One of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2005 papal conclave that selected Pope Benedict XVI, Hummes was often mentioned as a possible successor to Pope John Paul II. Hummes was a member of Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Congregation for Bishops, Congregation for Catholic Education, Pontifical Council for the Laity, Pontifical Council for the Family, Pontifical Council Cor Unum, Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Pontifical Council for Culture, Pontifical Commission for Latin America, X Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, Council of Cardinals for the Study of Organizational, and Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See. On 31 October 2006, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Hummes to head the Congregation for the Clergy. He accepted his resignation from that post on 7 October 2010. In 2013 he served as one of the 115 cardinals in the conclave that elected Pope Francis. When the new pope won the conclave ballot, Hummes whispered to him, "Don't forget the poor". Francis said that immediately he remembered Francis of Assisi, "the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation," and "the name Francis came into my heart". When Francis appeared on the balcony shortly after his election, Hummes was among the cardinals who accompanied the new pope and stood beside him at his immediate left on the balcony. A year later, Hummes was appointed honorary president of the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (REPAM), established in 2014 in Brasilia, Brazil, during a meeting of bishops whose territories include Amazon regions, priests, missionaries of congregations who work in the Amazon jungle, and national representatives of Caritas and laypeople belonging to various Church bodies. In his message, he reiterated that the creation of the Pan-Amazon Ecclesial Network "represents a new incentive and relaunch of the work of the Church in Amazonia, strongly desired by the Holy Father. There, the Church wishes to be, with courage and determination, a missionary Church, merciful, prophetic, and close to all the people, especially the poorest, the excluded, the discarded, the forgotten and wounded. A Church with an 'Amazonian face' and a 'native clergy', as Pope Francis proposed in his address to the bishops of