There is a rumour in the Vatican of a new consistory to appoint cardinals; some believe this consistory will be called by the end of the year, some think it will take place at the beginning of 2013, a year after the last one (last February).
In truth Benedict XVI is more likely to call a consistory towards the end of the Year of the Faith, which he established with the ‘motu proprio data’, “Porta Fidei” ( Door of Faith).
The Year of the Faith will begin on the 11th of October 2012 and end on the 24th of November 2013; at that point, the presence of many bishops and cardinals in Rome for the closing ceremonies might mark the right time for the appointment of new cardinals.
Currently the College of Cardinals includes 123 voters, this number will drop to 114 by the end of 2012 and furthermore to 104 by the end of 2013.
Since the law forbids men over eighty to actively be part of a Conclave, Benedict XVI has felt the need to keep the College of Cardinals well “stocked” and ready to deal with an eventuality that everyone hopes is still far away, but which cannot be discarded due to the pope’s age (85 in April).
Truth be told, the most recent consistory has driven Benedict XVI to exceed by five people the upper limit of 120 voting members in the College, number that had been established by Paul VI and confirmed by John Paul II.
By August however things will go back to normal.
There is a problem of regional representativeness which is a contributing factor in the need for a consistory in the not too distant future. The last one clearly favoured the Curia and Italy. Currently if the cardinals convened in a Conclave to elect a new pope, out of 123 voters, there would be 30 Italians.
The pope and his Secretary of State, card. Tarcisio Bertone, are perfectly aware of this problem.
The latter interviewed by Andrea Tornielli declared the following: “First of all, estimates show the arrangement of the consistories called by Benedict XVI to be balanced. It is not possible to demand that every consistory have the perfect chemistry of South and North and East and West. There is a variety of Cardinals’ Episcopal Sees representing local Churches that despite their many problems are more relevant and significant and there are also the posts in the central government of the Church which might be best suited to those belonging to certain nationalities”.
It is clear from this statement that we are talking of an overall balance that needs to be kept and safeguarded.
How?
Analyzing the worldwide situation of the dioceses that are traditionally headed by cardinals, one can grasp an overall picture of the various needs and situations. Let’s start by saying that taking into account the hopefuls who have already been discovered and those that will be in 2012 and largely in 2013, one can count more than twenty legitimate candidates to cardinalship, without taking into account those within the Vatican.
Obviously not all of them will be rewarded, but it is likely that the new “batch” will be made paying special attention to the dioceses rather than the central government which was favoured in the last consistory and that this time there might be just a few Italians.
In Italy the dioceses customarily led by a cardinal, but whose titular bishop is not one at the moment, are two.
The first is Venice, where the new Patriarch Francesco Moraglia has just arrived and he is not likely to be left out in the new wave of appointments.
The other is Turin with archbishop Nosiglia whose claim has so far been blocked by the fact that his predecessor, Severino Poletto, is still a voting member of the Conclave. There is an unwritten rule that one diocese must not have more than one voting cardinal.
Poletto will turn 80 on the 18th of March next year.
A quick glance at the world’s map however shows that there are real gaps and some areas are not represented at all.
The Maronite Patriarch of Lebanon, Bechara Rai, and his colleague the Patriarch of Antioch, Ignace Youssif III Younan, have not yet been appointed cardinals, while the Patriarch of Iraq, Delly (born in 1927), is already beyond voting age.
At the moment the Middle East appears entirely excluded from the Conclave.
In Asia there are the Philippines (the archbishop of Manila is Luis Tagle, Emeritus Rosales will turn 80 in August), Korea where the cardinal archbishop of Seoul, Nicholas Jin-Suk, is 81 years old and Thailand whose cardinal, Michael Kitbunchu, cannot be included in the Conclave (he was born in 1929) while his successor Francis Kovithavanji hasn’t been appointed cardinal yet.
Australia and New Zealand can only count on George Pell, the other three cardinals are over eighty and the archbishop of Wellington, John Atcherley Dew, is not a cardinal.
Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia and Canada do not have any resident cardinals.
In Chile, card. Erraruriz Ossa will celebrate his eightieth birthday next year and his successor, the Salesian Riccardo Ezzati, of Italian origins, is not a cardinal.
The situation is just as lacking in Africa, where Ivory Coast, Uganda, Mozambique, Cameroon and Angola do not have voting cardinals.
In Europe the Primate of Spain and archbishop of Toledo, Braulia Rodrìguez Plaza, has not been appointed yet.
Slovakia and Latvia do not have voting cardinals.
In the United Kingdom, Murphy O’ Connor will turn eighty in August.
In the United States, the unwritten rule mentioned earlier would prevent the following people from aspiring to cardinalship, unless the pope thinks otherwise: the archbishops of Los Angeles (Gomez), Philadelphia (Chaput) and Baltimore (Lori).
Also in the US the archbishop of Detroit, Vigneron, is not yet a cardinal.
In France and in Spain two dioceses once led by cardinals, Marseille and Seville, might get one soon …