Cardinals follow the ceremony during the ordinary public consistory for the creation of new cardinals at St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, Dec. 7, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Dec 8, 2024 / 18:36 pm (CNA).
A record 140 cardinals may attend an eventual conclave in the Sistine Chapel. There would have been 141, but Cardinal Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot’s death on November 25 reduced the number by one. In all, the Sacred College now has 255 members.
The number of cardinal electors is the most critical data point to emerge from this weekend’s consistory. Of the 140 cardinal electors, 110 have been created by Pope Francis, 24 by Benedict XVI, and six by St. John Paul II. At the end of the year, on December 24, Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias, created cardinal by Benedict XVI in 2007, will reach 80 years of age and will, therefore, no longer be able to participate in a conclave.
Another 14 cardinals will turn 80 in 2025. They are Cardinals Christoph Schoenborn, Fernando Vergez Alzaga, Celestino Aos Braco, George Alencherry, Carlos Osoro Sierra, Robert Sarah, Stanislaw Rylko, Joseph Coutts, Vinko Pulhić, Antonio Canizares Llovera, Vincent Nichols, Jean-Pierre Kutwa, Nakellentuba Ouédraogo and Timothy Radcliffe.
Two of these were created by St. John Paul II, four by Benedict XVI and eight by Pope Francis.
However, it will be necessary to wait until May 2026 to return to the figure of 120 cardinal electors established by St. Paul VI and never abrogated.
Pope Francis’s choices
For the first time, there is now a cardinal in Iran, Archbishop Dominique Matthieu of Tehran-Ispahan, a Belgian missionary. It is also the first time there is a cardinal in Serbia, with Archbishop Ladislav Nemet of Belgrade receiving the red hat.
Pope Francis has created cardinals from 72 different nations, and 24 of those nations have never had a cardinal before.
Pope Francis has also shown that he does not choose based on the traditional seats of cardinals. For example, there are no cardinals to lead the two historic European patriarchates of Lisbon and Venice, nor in Milan, Florence, or Paris.
There are exceptions, however. In this consistory, Pope Francis created cardinals in the archbishops of Turin, Naples, Lima, Santiago de Chile, Toronto, and the vicar general of the Diocese of Rome.
Naples entered the list somewhat surprisingly, with the pope’s decision communicated in a statement from the Holy See Press Office on November 4. Archbishop Battaglia of Naples replaced Bishop Bruno Syukur of Bogor, Indonesia, who had asked Pope Francis to remove him from the list of new cardinals for unspecified personal reasons.
The geographical balance of the College of Cardinals
The pope did not decide to replace a possible Indonesian cardinal with another cardinal from Asia.
Meanwhile, the percentage of Italian cardinals in the College of Cardinals is the lowest ever, at least in modern times. Only during the so-called Avignon Captivity (1309-1377) was the percentage of Italian cardinals so low.
However, to Italy’s 17 must be added Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, who is included in the quota of Asia, and Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, ordinary of Mongolia, also in Asia.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu is instead considered a non-elector, but this status is still being determined. Pope Francis had asked him to renounce his prerogatives as a cardinal but has continued to invite him to consistories and Masses, where he has always sat among the cardinals. If a decision is not made before then, the College of Cardinals, with a majority vote, will decide whether or not Cardinal Becciu will be admitted to the conclave.
Regional distribution
The balance crucially stays the same. Europe has received three more cardinals, in addition to the four Italians with the right to vote: Archbishop Ladislav Nemet of Belgrade (58 years old), Archbishop Rolandas Makrickas (52), coadjutor archpriest of the papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore since March, and Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe (79). Europe now has 55 cardinals.
Latin America has received five new cardinals. The purple has arrived in dioceses that have received it several times — with Archbishop Carlos Gustavo Castillo Mattasoglio (74) in Lima and Archbishop Fernando N. Chomali Garib (67) in Santiago de Chile — or only once — with Archbishop Luis Gerardo Cabrera Herrera (69) in Guayaquil, Ecuador and Archbishop Jaime Spengler (64, who is also president of CELAM) in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
The red birretta to Archbishop Vicente Bokalic Iglic (72) of Santiago del Estero is also a first. However, in this case, the ground had already been prepared by the recent decision to move the title of primate of Argentina from Buenos Aires to this seat. Overall, Latin America now has 24 cardinals (including Cardinal Celestino Aos Braco, emeritus of Santiago de Chile, born in Spain).
Asia has received four new cardinals. The pope gave the red hat to Archbishop Tarcisius Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo, 66, and to the bishops of two dioceses that have never had a cardinal at the helm: Bishop Pablo Vigilio Siongo David, 65, of Kalookan in the Philippines and Archbishop Dominique Joseph Mathieu, 61, of Tehran.
Africa has received two new cardinals, bringing the continent’s total to 18. The two new ones are Archbishop Jean-Paul Vesco, 62, in Algiers, and Archbishop Ignace Bessi Dogbo, 63, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
North America now has 14 electors, with the addition of Toronto Archbishop Francis Leo (53). Oceania has four electors, with the creation of Bishop Mykola Bychok of the eparchy of Saints Peter and Paul in Melbourne of the Ukrainians as cardinal. At 44, he has become the youngest member of the College of Cardinals.
National representation
Italy remains the most represented nation in the conclave, with 17 electors (plus two more in Asia). The United States has 10 cardinal electors, and Spain has 7 (with another 3 in Morocco, Chile, and France).
Brazil has increased to 7 electors, and India to 6 electors. France remains at 5 electors, to which Archbishop Vesco in North Africa has been added. Cardinal François-Xavier Bustillo, bishop of Ajaccio, is anagraphically Spanish although naturalized French.
Argentina and Canada join Poland and Portugal with four cardinal electors, while Germany is tied with the Philippines and Great Britain with three.
The weight of cardinal electors engaged in the Curia, in other Roman roles or the nunciatures, has decreased, like that of the Italians. They will be 34 out of 140, a historic low.
Of the 21 new cardinals, 10 (all electors) belong to religious orders and congregations, another record. The number of religious electors in the Sacred College has risen from 27 to 35. The Friars Minor joined the Salesians at five and surpassed the Jesuits, who remain at 4. The Franciscan family grows to 10 electors (5 Minors, 3 Conventuals, and 2 Capuchins). The Lazarists and Redemptorists rise to 2.
What would a possible conclave be like?
As of December 8, Pope Francis has created 78% of the cardinals who can vote in a conclave. This means that the cardinals created by Pope Francis far exceed the two-thirds majority needed to elect a pope.
This does not necessarily mean that the conclave will be “Francis-like.” Not only do the new cardinals all have very different profiles, but they have yet to have much opportunity to get to know each other. Popes have also used consistories to bring together cardinals to discuss issues of general interest.
Pope Francis had done so only three times: in 2014, when the family was discussed; in 2015, when the topic was the reform of the Curia; and in 2022, when the apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium, or the reform of the Curia now defined and promulgated, was discussed.
In this last meeting, the cardinals were divided into linguistic groups, with fewer opportunities to speak in the assembly together. This scenario makes the vote very uncertain.
Another fact that should be noted is that until St. John Paul II’s election, the cardinals gathered in the conclave were housed in makeshift accommodations in the Apostolic Palace near the Sistine Chapel. John Paul II had the Domus Sanctae Marthae (St. Martha House) renovated precisely to guarantee the cardinals who would elect his successor more adequate accommodations.
Today, however, Pope Francis lives in the Domus Sanctae Marthae. This means that, upon the pope’s death, at least the floor where the pontiff lives must be sealed, as the papal apartment is sealed. Sealing a floor of the Domus also means losing a considerable number of rooms. And with such a high number of voters, it also means risking not having enough rooms to accommodate all the cardinals.
The electors could be placed in vacant apartments within Vatican City State. This, however, would make them even more isolated. In practice, there is a risk that, during the conclave, the cardinals would not always be able to be together to discuss the election.
For these reasons, although Pope Francis has created more than two-thirds of the cardinal electors, it is by no means certain that the pope chosen in a future conclave will have the same profile as Pope Francis.
[…]
Does wishing the Church were one, holy, catholic and apostolic again make me a backwardist?
Depends. But aren’t you proud to be one? I am. I think Deacon Ed Peltier is one too; for many months he added the word to his name.
meiron: I’m as backwardist as ever. In fact, my motto is: “Backwardist and proud.” I belong to the Backwardist Branch of the Catholic Church. (Please don’t confuse this as saying that I am an adherent to Mass celebrated in the Extraordinary Form as I am not. But I’m also against suppressing it.)
I’m fully intending to proselytize. In fact, the Backwardist Catholic Church believes that Jesus Christ is the only path to God; salvation is through Jesus Christ. He is the Way, the Truth and Life. I make no apologies to anyone that I am a follower of Christ. My aim is not to make other people feel better but to speak the truth at all times.
I hate the phrase me too, but me too. Since truth is eternal, an idea abhorrent to the synodal/syncretistic/pseudo-Catholic religion of this pontificate, we have to look backward to recognize ourselves.
There are only two philosophies. Everything else is derivative. Either God is a fool or we are. Were it the first, truth would be meaningless. Since it is the latter, it is for this reason that we fail to see that God did not and could not abandon us to a capricious understanding of how we ought to order our lives together. Moral truth never changes.
Those who primarily worship themselves rather than God lose or discover they never had faith in the idea that all truth originates exclusively within the mind of God, so they pursue revolutionary fantasies that promise to eliminate evil in the human condition once and for all.
Brilliantly said!
No, Brineyman. It makes you Catholic.
About the theologian Chiodi and his special-circumstances squint, the hole in the Titanic was only one-quarter of an inch wide…but also below the waterline and 300 feet long. (At least the little Dutch Boy on the leaking dike knew where to put his thumb.)
For helpful perspective, from an earlier Anglican (say what!) gathering we have the following from dissenters to the incremental approval of mutual masturbation (pontificated at the 1930 Lambeth Conference). Said the minority at a later such gathering in 1948:
“It is, to say the least, suspicious that the age in which contraception has won its way is not one which has been conspicuously successful in managing its sexual life. Is it possible that, by claiming the right to manipulate his physical processes in this manner, man may, without knowing it, be stepping over the boundary between the world of Christian marriage and what one might call the world of Aphrodite, the world of sterile eroticism?” (Cited in Wright, “Reflections on the Third Anniversary of a Controverted Encyclical,” St. Louis: Central Bureau Press, 1971).
And, how dare Chiodi refer to some homosexual relations as “fruitful” !? Indeed, a backwardist, fixistic, bigoted, and homophobic double-entendre of hurtful slang.
What more needs to be said about this papacy? We await…
I strive often to maintain a charitable perception of Pope Francis. However, when I read the following paragraph, “Chiodi was made a theology professor at the Pontifical John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and the Family Sciences in 2019 following its refounding by Pope Francis. He has also been a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life since 2017.”
Saint John Paul II was not simply a spiritual giant to me and whose writings led to my conversion to the Church, but he was a towering academic relative to Bergoglio. When Bergoglio “refounds” Pope John Paul II’s Theological Institute for Marriage and the Family Sciences, staffing it with those similar to Chiodi, the jig is up and I cannot attempt to provide further charity. It is a pathway leading to heresey and acceptance of evil. I give up. I cannot continue to make excuses for Bergoglio.
Serious question here:
Has the Catholic Church ever before had a pope who was actively seeking to undermine the Church and subvert her teachings?
I know we’ve had corrupt, self-serving popes, but I don’t know whether any have been actively engaged in sabotage.
Before now, I mean.
The Renaissance popes kept their excesses between the sheets.
Peter: That’s not only true but humorous as well (although we should never conclude that sin is ever something that is funny.)
But even our good popes preceding Francis kept the excesses of dissenting theologians in place, without meaningful consequences to their careers, implicitly validating their corruption of young minds in universities while Baggio selected faithless men to be rubber-stamped into the episcopate. A fool ending up in the Chair of Peter is the logical result of a long process of indifference to real consequences.
brineyman: Please be ever-reminded that the election of one Jorge Bergoglio to the Chair of St. Peter was orchestrated by one Theodore Cardinal McCarrick (now known in the Church as MR. Theodore McCarrick a known homosexual predator).
I predict in 10 years or so, the Church will change her teachings on contraception–even is “okay” to use though not optional given certain marital conditions (rather like the Anglicans did so many years ago).
Folks who are loyal Catholics will say this is nothing to worry about since the teaching on contraception is part of natural law teaching and was never taught infallibly, etc.
Something like that.
I had thought that Humanae vitae’s teaching against willful contraception WAS infallible teaching. Maybe I was wrong. Paul VI was clear in what he said and wrote not like the current occupier of Peter’s Chair.
I think this is in doubt, “cuz reasons.”
I remember listening to a series of talks given at an NFP conference, and one of the speakers, a priest who was on the board of an NFP group, was asked the question about HV being “infallible.” And I clearly remember him saying that No, it was not, contraception being part of the natural law teachings–like you can’t go around putting water in the gas tank of your car and expect it to run properly (he didn’t say that last, but that is what I understood.)
.
Before I wrote the above, I looked up the part about contraception being infallible, and it would appear that points of view vary, unlike the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception–which I believe everyone understands to be infallibly taught.
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The overwhelming majority of Catholics–clergy and laity alike–do not support the “ban” on contraception and view it as nothing more than a nice traditional discipline or whatever, completely optional. So I think it will be somewhat “formally” loosened (like Fudicia Supplicans did for gay marriage) in 10 years, and then maybe officially overturned another 10 years after.
That is pretty much guaranteed.
The good news will be that people will flee the sinking ship, and join the SSPX and other Catholic societies. The bad new will be, that the Church will promote the damnation of God knows many by her false & deadly teaching.
People are capable of justifying any falsehood whatsoever. Justifying the belief that Jesus was only a great prophet, would be a much tougher proposition, but I don’t doubt the Church would try it, if need be. The Papacy has shown itself to be worthless as a guardian of and guide to religious truth.
The world has long gone the way of the Pied Piper of Gomorrah. The Vatican in relative slow motion. We know who the Piper is. Does the Vatican?
The Vatican stands as a pariah in the midst of the Apostolic faithful [to differentiate from the progressive], the remaining few in the pews and at the altar. Fr Maurizio Chiodi chosen as representative of a less unsophisticated, blunt perspective for a more finesse, intellectually appealing approach. He speaks of “homosexual relationships under certain conditions to enjoy good relations”, the exception in pleasant contrast to the rampant orgy that emblazons the morally dissolute.
Now we’ve dealt with Francis’ exceptions to the rule in Amoris Laetitia and know where that narrow exception has taken us. Obviously it’s not the exception that’s at issue, because an exception that undermines the rule is a new rule. It’s not a slippery slope analogy. That’s due to the destruction of the principles that make for the rule. In this case as explicated by Chiodi an unlawful act is instead by nature a moral good.
If the Lord will be propitious to us, what other assistance do we need -St. Basil.
The Church will not change her teachings and positions and what we see presently pushed at the forefront of everything will not survive. The latter is predicated on the 4 “outlooks” in Evangelii Gaudium which are heralded as “against proselytism” that at the same time teach being brought to God and the Commandments through sterilizing relationships and exchange that is “reality”. These 4 altogether and individually –
1. don’t totally reconcile with any one parable or the Beatitudes but also are internally self-contradicting
2. admit conventual and individualist processes not of the Gospel to transfix them as of some universal or destined virtue or moment or wonder
3. serve and advance the methods and causes of the enemies of salvation in their obliquity ratiocination and
4. misread the signs of the times.
See the sower and seed, or the prodigal son, or the widow’s mite, etc.
It substitutes the medicine of God for being medicinal and inclusionary. So as if to not offend the 1st Commandment as if by not offending the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 8th Commandments because it is a collectivity all at once.
(The St. Basil quote is from MAGNIFICAT of September 6 2007.)
If Fr Chiodi says God made same sex attraction, perceived as a divine good, then it becomes intrinsic with natural law. As Pope Francis told the gay seminarian God made you that way. As if to say if you’re born with no arms, with Downs Syndrome God intentionally made you that way. That mistakes of nature and all the ills of Mankind are not really the result of original sin.
Christ says differently as recorded in the Gospels, that he freed those born with or who acquired physical, mental defects – from ‘the grip of the devil’. In effect the result of evil coming into the world. Evil, moral as well as physical features of the kingdom of Satan.
Actually it was Fr Radcliffe OP who made the assertion that same sex attraction “is God given”.
“God given?” Do the math…
The percentage of anti-binary LGBTQ in recent age groups vastly outstrips (so to speak) the percentage in earlier age groups and times past. Since such sexual fluidity doesn’t spread biologically (!), then the what pray tell, might be the reason?
Maybe we can tease a clue from Andre Gide, prominent and conflicted bisexual novelist? About whom, a biographer wrote thusly:
“[Gide] emphatically protests that he has not a word to say against marriage and reproduction (but then) suggests that it would be of benefit to an adolescent, before his desires are fixed, to have a love affair with an older man, instead of with a woman. . . the general principle admitted by Gide, elsewhere in his treatise, that sexual practice tends to stabilize [!] in the direction where it has first found satisfaction; to inoculate a youth with homosexual tastes seems an odd way to prepare him for matrimony” (Harold March, “Gide and the Hound of Heaven,” 1952).
Is it God or, instead, is it sociological?
Sociological as in exploitation, sexual abuse, early-age experimentation and getting locked in (stabilized), and stuff like that? This is God? Ironically, Cardinal Hollerich might be onto something when he pontificates, “I believe that the sociological-scientific foundation of this teaching [basic sexual morality] is no longer correct.” https://www.newwaysministry.org/2022/02/04/leading-cardinal-in-synod-seeks-change-in-church-teachings-on-homosexuality/ What this luminary meant to say, surely, was that social research doesn’t so much upend sexual morality–as it might uncover the actual causes of the multiplying behavioral pandemic. Then there’s the role of locking-in brain chemistry associated with all kinds of addictions, even video games, and pornography which is found to be more addictive than cocaine.
Even Church hirelings are in the act of indirectly grooming (the double-speak of the DDF’s Fiducia Supplicans?). And, thereby outfitting themselves with fashionable millstone neckties to go with their red and purple hats.
“Since such sexual fluidity doesn’t spread biologically (!), then the what pray tell, might be the reason?”. This is such a telling indicator about the origins of LGBT, which points to psychology [or sociology as you suggest] and a growing mindset rather than a biological disorder from the normative.
EDWARD: Brilliantly said!
Thank You! Always like your comments too.