Friday, January 06, 2012

Epiphany with a consistory

A crimson-colored Epiphany stocking. 

At the end of the Epiphany Mass Benedict XVI is to celebrate this morning in Saint Peter’s, he will announce the list of new cardinals who will receive the red hat in the fourth consistory of his pontificate. 

The list is expected to contain fifteen names of cardinals under the age of eighty - and thus potential electors in case of a conclave - plus two or three over-eighties. 

The most likely date for the ceremony, during which the Pope will place the red hat on the new “princes of the Church,” is Saturday, 18 February.

The next day, Sunday, 19 February, the solemn concelebration is expected to be held, during which Benedict VI will give the new cardinals the newly-made cardinal’s rings, prepared for the occasion by the Savi Brothers.
 
The soon-to-be-announced event will be Benedict XVI’s fourth consistory. Cardinals created by Benedict XVI having the right to vote in the conclave will exceed, for the first time, those appointed by Wojtyla. 

In the November 2010 consistory, half the posts were assigned to heads of dicasteries and offices of the Roman Curia. This time there could be even more. The dicastery heads waiting to be made cardinal are: the Italians Fernando Filoni (Prefect of Propaganda Fide), Domenico Calcagno, (President of APSA), Giuseppe Bertello (President of the Governorship of the State of Vatican City), and Giuseppe Versaldi (President of the Prefect for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See but also Bishop of Alexandria); the Brazilian João Braz de Avi (former Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher), the Spaniard Santos Abril y Castelló (Dean of the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore), and the new Major Penitentiary of the Holy Roman Church, the Portuguese Manuel Monteiro Castro, appointed just yesterday.

Another Italian curial add to this list is Francesco Coccopalmerio, President of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts.
 
Given the number of new cardinals from the Roman Curia, it will not be possible to broaden the circle of red hats to include bishops who lead large dioceses around the world. This will trigger the enforcement of the unwritten rule that denies cardinalship to those who have a predecessor emeritus who is less than eighty years of age. 

Considered sure cardinals are the new Archbishops of Berlin (Rainer Maria Woelki), Toronto (Thomas C. Collins), and Utrecht (Willem J. Eijk), the bishop of Hong Kong (John Tong, whose predecessor turns 80 this coming 16 January), as well as the new Libyan Maronite Patriarch, Bechara Raiand, and in India, the Major Archbishop of Syro-Malabar, George Alencherry and finally included the name of the pastor of Florence, Giuseppe Betori.
 
Two other possible candidates are Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan, and Archbishop of Prague Dominik Duka, whose predecessors will reach 80 years of age on 2 April and 17 May 2012.