Archbishop Battaglia, 61, has been seen as a rising star in the Italian Church. Francis is occasionally known to cite prayers written by the archbishop.

The archbishop's appointment as a cardinal brings the number of new voting-age cardinals who will be created next month to 21. That follows the announcement of the Indonesian Bishop Paskalis Bruno Syukur that he was declining the pope's offer to make him a cardinal.

The Vatican gave no clear reason for the bishop refusing the pope's appointment, saying only that it was "motivated by his desire to continue growing in priestly life and in service to the Church and the people of God."

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"To hope for it is to live in the real world," insists Timothy Radcliffe, the former Master of the Dominican Order (1992-2001), who Pope Francis named when he announced the nomination of 21 new cardinals during his Sunday Angelus address October 6. They will be created during a consistory on December 8.

Pope Francis selected the 79-year-old priest and friar to lead a retreat last October for the 363 members of the Synod assembly just before they began deliberating on synodality and the future of the Catholic Church. The theme he chose for that retreat was "Hope against all hope."

In this exclusive interview published by La Croix International January 2, 2024, Fra Timothy, also a best-selling spiritual writer and preacher, explains why — even in our perilous times — there is reason for hope as we begin 2024.

La Croix: How would you define hope?

Timothy Radcliffe: During the general chapters of the Dominican Order to which I belong, we have always noticed a fascinating difference between "Latin" and "Anglo-Saxon" cultures.

Latin cultures generally begin a discussion by defining terms. We Anglo-Saxons find it more fruitful to let the full meaning of words emerge gradually.

So, I am delighted that you are faithful to your French cultural heritage! And, out of courtesy, I must propose something: for a Christian, hope consists of believing that we will attain the fullness of the happiness we aspire to, namely God.

During the retreat you gave last October to the members of the Synod assembly, you meditated on the phrase "Hope against all hope." Isn't that a bit crazy, reckless, and audacious to hope against all hope?

On the contrary, I would say it would be strange - even crazy - NOT to hope for this infinite happiness. Human beings are sometimes touched by the thirst for limitless, unconditional love. If we reject this as an illusion, then we are saying that at the core of our humanity, there is deception.

I believe that this profound human thirst for infinite happiness, which we all feel at times, is the most real thing there is. To hope for it is to live in the real world. Children know this.

I hope that education does not destroy this hope, which is the secret core of our humanity.

The world is currently being shaken by conflicts in Palestine and Ukraine. How can one not be worried and affected by this climate of war? One cannot remain indifferent...

Of course not! It would be scandalous to remain indifferent.

The difficulty is that we so often see violence in the media that it is easy to escape its reality and think that all of this is just a game as if the world's wars were harmless baseball games. If only we could catch a glimpse of the true horror of war, we would weep deeply and strive for peace.

I saw a video of a young Russian soldier being hunted by a drone. He realised it was the end and shot himself in the mouth. I cried for an hour.

The reasons to worry are also related to the climate crisis. Can humanity still save our planet?

That deserves a very long answer! I would simply say that one of the causes of our destructive behavior is the myth that we must pursue endless growth. That is an illusion. We need a new model of a healthy economy.

The second problem is that politics and business focus on the short term - the next elections, the year-end financial report. To get elected, politicians are forced to promise what they cannot deliver. Every politician is therefore a failed messiah.

In Britain, at least, the major political parties always insist that the other party is not trustworthy. So, it's not surprising that we are witnessing the rise of authoritarian regimes. We certainly need a renewal of responsible local democracy, in which we are trained in mutual responsibility.

How do we avoid fear in a world gripped by violence?

It is natural to be afraid in a dangerous world. Courage does not consist of not being afraid but of not being a prisoner of fear. Some of the bravest people I know are those who are afraid but still do what needs to be done.

I think of a Canadian Dominican, Yvon Pomerleau, who dared to return to Rwanda during the genocide at the risk of his life.

The army came to our community to look for him: all the brothers had to lie on the ground, interrogated to reveal his whereabouts. He told me that he was there, trembling with fear, but he did not run away. That is true courage."

The Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe said, "If you love, you will be hurt and even killed. If you don't love, you are already dead."

Yes, we will be hurt, but the risen Lord appeared to the disciples and showed them his wounds. We are the brothers and sisters of our wounded Lord, and our wounds are a sign that we dared to live and share his hope.

How can we trust in the face of an uncertain future?

"Trust" is a beautiful word. It literally means "to believe together" - con-fidens in Latin. We do not hope alone but in the community of faith.

When I have doubts, another person may have the confidence to support me. When they lose hope, I may be able to help them. So, the more perilous the future, the more urgent it is for us to seek the common good together and not to lock ourselves into our own survival.

Is placing one's trust in God a refuge or an escape?

I have had the great privilege of living with people like Blessed Pierre Claverie, who was martyred in Algeria in 1996.

He devoted his life to dialogue with his Muslim friends. He knew he was going to be killed, but he faced the future with confidence in God, and he gave us, his brothers, sisters, and friends, confidence.

I also think of Albert Nolan, a Dominican who courageously fought against apartheid at the risk of his life in South Africa.

It is also so encouraging to live with people who face terrible diseases and ultimately death with courage and joy.

Where can we find hope? From prayer? Meeting others? Reading the Gospel?

Everything can contribute to it! Saint Oscar Romero was afraid of dying, but he was not defeated by that fear because he was a man of deep and silent prayer with the Lord. It was the foundation of his life. Everything he said stemmed from it.

With our closest friends, we can be silent and thus speak more deeply and be led to an even deeper silence. Some of my most precious memories are moments spent with friends in silence, in the presence of beauty, perhaps with a glass in hand!

What are your New Year's resolutions?

I would like to listen to more music. I am convinced that music is essential in our search for peace and harmony. It opens the door to transcendence. My life has often been a frantic race where I tried to do a hundred things. I should devote more time to music.

It is also good preparation for eternity, which is probably not so far away!

• First published in La Croix International
• Christophe Henning is a journalist for La Croix International

Pope Francis marked the anniversary of the beginning of the war in Israel after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack by calling a day of prayer and fasting for peace.

On October 6, Francis presided over a rosary for peace, without mentioning that the anniversary coincides with another significant event in the history of inter-religious relations.

During the Counter-Reformation, popes gave the rosary a role in explaining the triumph of Christians in the Holy League over the superior Ottoman forces at the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571, an event still evoked today by neo-traditionalists opposing Islam.

In 1572, Pius V established the feast of Our Lady of Victories on October 7 to give thanks for the victory, and in 1573, Gregory XIII dedicated the day to the Virgin of the Rosary, merging her iconography with that of the Virgin of Victory.

There was much that Pope Francis could not mention.

And there was something that he should not have mentioned in his "Letter to Catholics in the Middle East," for example, the passage from the Gospel of John 8:44, which some consider the single most antisemitic line in the New Testament.

This is just one example of the disastrous effects of the events of October 7, 2023, and their aftermath on relations between Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

Globalisation and the future of Catholicism

The war also impacts church politics. The war in the Middle East since October 2023 has amplified the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

It has brought to the forefront three Italian cardinals on the international stage: Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state; Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna and Francis' special envoy for peace in Ukraine; and Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Whatever happens between now and the next conclave, there is an Italianisation of the leading figures in the Catholic Church dealing with these major international crises.

Between the end of the Middle Ages and the early modern age, the Italianisation of the papacy and the Roman Curia was a response to the challenges brought to the church by the European powers and their support for schismatic demands.

We will see how the cardinals in the next conclave will respond to the challenges coming from the 21st-century world disorder.

"Having more cardinals from "the peripheries" means a college of cardinals more representative of the global Church, but also means a much higher number of cardinals physically distant from Rome and therefore potentially less able to advise the pope and the Curia."

The second effect is on the institutional responses of the Catholic Church and the Vatican in this age of geopolitical uncertainties. The globalisation of Catholicism means also a de-Europeanisation of the historical and religious narratives on the character and identity of the Church.

There have been previous phases of internationalization of the leadership of the Church in the College of Cardinals, especially since the 19th century, but today's diversification takes place in a situation Church in the Americas, especially in the United States.

This is visible in the list of the 21 new cardinals that Pope Francis will create in his tenth consistory of December 8.

This list sends strong signals to the countries that influence the destinies of the world: for example, creating as a cardinal Belgian missionary Dominique Joseph Mathieu, OFM Cap., archbishop of Tehran-Ispahan in Iran — a clear gesture to the United States and Israel at this time of serious risk of all-out war between Iran and an Israel supported by the United States.

But this internationalisation of the College of Cardinals also means the risk of overstretching the global institutional capacity of Catholicism.

Having more cardinals from "the peripheries" means a college of cardinals more representative of the global church, but also means a much higher number of cardinals physically distant from Rome and, therefore, potentially less able to advise the Pope and the Curia.

The strain on inter-religious relations

The third, most delicate, and disastrous series of effects concerns the future of the relations between the Catholic Church, Judaism and Islam.

This war in the Middle East broke out during the pontificate of Pope Francis, who is trying to do for the relations between the Church and Islam what John Paul II did for the relations with Judaism.

But now Catholicism must face the reality that institutionalised Christianity has been replaced as a source of antisemitism by some radical groups within Islam.

On the other side, there are Israel's political and constitutional trajectories under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In many ways, the State of Israel now faces the challenge of developing a modernity that reconciles religion and politics, a challenge that became more evident after the Holy See and Israel established full diplomatic relations in 1993.

Netanyahu's response to October 7 and his framing of relations between the Jewish state and Judaism are cementing a political theology of enmity between Jews and Muslims.

This challenges the post-Vatican II project of dialogue between the three Abrahamic religions as fundamental for peace-building, not only in the Middle East but as a paradigm for a new world order.

Vatican II set Catholic-Jewish dialogue in the context of European history, but that context is no longer the dominating working frame for interreligious relations, and not even for Jewish-Catholic relations.

The issue is not only that the moral lessons of World War II are now being sidelined or sometimes disregarded in secular post-colonial and de-colonial discourse.

In inter-religious dialogue, Jews and Muslims strongly committed to dialogue with the Catholic Church now feel that there is a growing set of issues that are not being acknowledged and understood in Rome.

This is paradoxically one of the fruits of the de-Europeanisation of the Vatican and global Catholicism. Vatican II set Catholic-Jewish dialogue in the context of European history, but that context is no longer the dominating working frame for inter-religious relations and not even for Jewish-Catholic relations.

On the other hand, the suffering of Palestinians and Christians in Gaza and Lebanon serves as yet another reminder of the challenges to fostering a culture of peace in today's high-tech warfare, where so-called pinpoint precision often accompanies indiscriminate bombings, leading to more innocent victims.

It also casts a dark shadow on the viability of the theology of liberation in the face of 21st-century state power and in the midst of wars and occupations where religion is manipulated into a "clash of civilizations."

The war unleashed by the events of October 7, 2023 risks squandering the journey made since the Second Vatican Council.

These events are happening during a time of the minimisation, in militant Catholic circles, of the theology of inter-religious dialogue within a Catholic Church that is more global but also far removed from Vatican II after 60 years.

After the conciliar declaration Nostra Aetate and especially after John Paul II, it was a common assumption that fighting antisemitism was an entry-level requirement for Catholics.

Sadly, this is no longer always true. It is not only the theology of new Catholic influencers but a broader process of de-theologisation and deculturation that reveals the marginalisation of Vatican II and its key documents on inter-religious relations, including Nostra Aetate and Dignitatis Humanae on religious liberty.

Impact of the war on the Catholic Church

One enormous problem is posed by radical traditionalist Catholic groups, but there are also the progressive Catholics who think that Vatican II is passé, the last gasp of a Church not inclusive enough, too Catholic to be modern.

There are some parallels between today's leftist progressivism and the blindness of socialists, communists, and radicals to antisemitism in the 20th century.

In many Western universities, the way administrators have handled the conflict and its aftermath has revealed that the religious diversity of Jews and Muslims and their protected status as minorities often does not align with the prevailing focus framed as sexual diversity and in ethnic-racial terms, particularly in the fight against "white supremacy," which tends to overlook religious considerations.

"One enormous problem is posed by radical traditionalist Catholic groups, but there are also the progressive Catholics who think that Vatican II is passé, the last gasp of a church not inclusive enough, too Catholic to be modern."

There is an irresponsible complacency that takes Vatican II for granted, but at times, there is also a programmatic liquidation of that chapter of our magisterial and theological tradition, becoming particularly problematic when on display in Catholic schools and universities.

Nostra Aetate and Christian-Jewish relations built many bridges in the post-Vatican II period, but many of these bridges now need to be inspected and, in some cases, rebuilt, also within Catholicism.

This war redefines the contours of what Karma Ben-Johanan, a professor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, called in her 2022 book on Christian-Jewish relations after Vatican II "the new covenant between Jews and Christians as the edict of the hour".

The new war in the Middle East represents a critical moment for that new covenant. October 7, 2023, and its aftermath affect the Catholic Church at the most profound institutional, theological and religious levels, with internal, international, and diplomatic dimensions that we have just begun to see.

• First published in La Croix International
• Massimo Faggioli is an Italian academic, Church historian, professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University, columnist for La Croix

Speaking at a lecture in Salzburg, Kasper highlighted the need for adaptation amidst ongoing synodal changes and decentralisation within the Church.

He suggested revitalising the early Church tradition of provincial and plenary councils to accommodate cultural diversity better.

Kasper proposed a new function for cardinals.

He envisioned them serving as presidents of plenary councils in their respective regions, representing the churches within those areas.

This proposal would establish a bicameral system comprising the Synod of Bishops and the Council of Cardinals.

Kasper presented these ideas during the "Benedictines as Cardinals" symposium at St Peter's Archabbey in Salzburg.

Cardinals became curia officials

During his lecture "Cardinals in the Service of the Church and the Papacy", Kasper traced the evolution of the cardinalate. He noted its fluctuating responsibilities and increasing politicisation over time.

Kasper noted that in the late Middle Ages, the cardinals were "increasingly drawn into the decline and decadence of Rome".

Then, in modern times, cardinals increasingly became curia officials - in parallel to the prince-bishops who continued to exist.

Kasper explained that Pope John XXIII through the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) rediscovered an earlier ecclesiastical leadership function that had been sidelined.

According to Kasper, it is necessary to return to the origins of the College of Cardinals. That is evangelisation and celebrating the Eucharist in communion with the Bishop of Rome.

"Both communion in the Word and communion in the sacrament were given as a guiding principle by the Second Vatican Council in its communion ecclesiology.

"We hope to keep Francis for a few more years; his successors will conclude his reforms" remarked Cardinal Kasper, underscoring the urgency of the proposed reforms.

Sources

Katholisch

Il Messaggero

CathNews New Zealand

The first is a hero of traditionalists, while the second is a champion of those who want reform.

And now the German cardinal and the American Jesuit are both voting members of the upcoming meeting of the Synod - by direct appointment of Pope Francis.

On July 7, the Synod's secretariat published the full list (naturally, only in Italian) of those who will be participating in the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which will take place October 4-29 at the Vatican.

And while most of the prelates who are listed have been elected either by national or regional episcopal conferences, or (as in the case of the heads of Roman Curia departments) will be participating in an ex officio capacity, the pope has hand-picked more than 50 others.

He's selected 10 people from 20 candidates - among laity and clergy - who were proposed by the bishops of each continent (the Synod lists seven).

The 70 people the pope chose all participated in the continental synodal gatherings that were held several months ago.

Striking a balance

What's interesting about "Bergoglio's List" (to borrow the title of a book that came out in 2013 and sought to tell "the untold story" of "how a young Francis defied a dictatorship and saved dozens of lives" during his native Argentina's so-called "dirty war") is that our now much older Francis is trying to use the synodal process, in defiance of widespread cynicism and indifference, to save the Church from internal polarisation.

It's a high-wire act, to be sure.

And his decision to invite both Müller and Martin shows that he's well aware that Catholics of all points of view must be part of the synodal process, his audacious project to reform and re-energizs the Church's sense of communion, participation and mission.

Most people have focused on the people Francis has chosen to be at next October's assembly (and likely at the one in 2024), some complaining that he's actually stacked the deck in favour of reformers and has invited only a handful of folks like Cardinal Müller who have been critics of this pontificate and/or the synodal process.

Actually, the pope has done an impressive job of trying to strike a balance.

He has answered episcopal conferences (like the one in the United States) that elected delegates who have been hostile or lukewarm towards his pontificate by personally appointing delegates from those same regions who are his supporters.

On the other hand, Francis has appointed more "traditionalist" participants to the Synod assembly from places like Germany, where the so-called "progressives" were elected by the bishops' conference.

Who can preside at a Synod assembly?

Francis has also introduced another complete novelty to the Synod's structure, which has largely gone unnoticed or has been dismissed as something of little significance. And that has to do with who presides over the Synod meetings.

The Bishop of Rome is the president of the Synod of Bishops, but he usually appoints three cardinals to serve as "president delegates" during the general assemblies.

Why cardinals?

Evidently, they are the men on the highest rung of the hierarchy.

Only cardinals can elect the pope and the one who gets elected is almost always a cardinal.

So, naturally, popes choose cardinals as their legates and, in the case of the Synod, their stand-ins to run the working sessions.

That's the way it has been since Paul VI instituted this modern-day version of the Synod of the Roman Church and held its first assembly in 1967.

But Pope Francis has now shattered that 56-year-long custom and has appointed nine president delegates - and only one of them wears the red hat: Cardinal Carlos Aguiar of Mexico City.

Among the other eight is an Eastern Church patriarch from Egypt, three other bishops (from Ecuador, Australia and the United States), an Italian priest, a religious sister from Mexico and a female lay missionary from Japan.

The message here is that any member of the People of God (both ordained and non-ordained) can preside over the Synod assembly as the pope's delegate.

This is a radical step forward that most people seem to have missed.

Perhaps that is because the duties of a president delegate have been viewed as merely ceremonial.

But ceremony and symbol in the Church almost always signify a deeper or greater reality. Francis' innovation in this regard should not be passed over quickly.

He's made an important statement by allowing members of the lay faithful to preside at the synodal proceedings.

We've only just begun

Certainly, there is more to be said about the list of participants the pope has put together for the October gathering.

There are 364 members with the right to vote, including 52 women - only two fewer than the number of cardinals who will be participating.

There are also a number of young people who are voting members, some of them still doing undergraduate studies in university.

Francis' inclusion of Cardinal Müller is extremely significant, given that the pope did not renew the German theologian as the head of the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2017, but left him - at only 69 years of age - without a job.

But Müller, who has been quite critical of the revamped synodal procedures, is not the only former doctrinal chief - or "retired" head of a Vatican office - that the pope has called to the upcoming Synod assembly.

Cardinal Luis Ladaria SJ, who succeeded Müller and retires in September, will also be a voting member.

Francis has also made Cardinal Marc Ouellet a member of the October assembly.

The French Canadian, who served thirteen years as head of the Dicastery for Bishops, is a disciple of the theology of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

And the list, as they say, goes on...

But the synodal process, to be perfectly honest, has only just begun.

And no one can be sure where it will lead, especially with the hundreds of participants who will be bringing different experiences, passions, hopes, fears and expectations to this first of the two gatherings.

By launching the Church on this unclear journey, Francis - who will be 87 in December - has created a process that will either lead to the Church's rejuvenation or he has opened a Pandora's box that will only hasten its implosion.

We'll have a better idea of which it is at the end of October.

Source

• Robert Mickens is La Croix International Editor. First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

But while the wild rumour that Francis was mulling the appointment of a coadjutor vice-pope didn't pan out (no surprise!), the cardinals still had a major change to the life of the Church to consider — the concept of "lay governance."

That conversation has the potential to change the way the Church governs and even defines itself at every level — from the Vatican to the German synodal way to local diocesan chanceries.

What's going on? What is this debate about, and does it mean for dioceses around the world?

Who's talking about this?

When Pope Francis promulgated Praedicate Evangelium in March of this year, it included the now-famous reform that "any member of the faithful can preside over a Dicastery or Office," clearing the way for laymen and women to serve at the highest levels of the Holy See's administrative apparatus, for the first time.

In the text of Praedicate itself, however, that reform was contextualized in ways that canon lawyers have is unclear. And some theologians and canon lawyers have said that the plan - or certain interpretations, at least - could be at odds with the teachings of Vatican Council II.

Those concerns were echoed by some cardinals in Rome this weekend.

And the issue is not just about the Vatican. While a change to governance policies in the Roman Curia is a big deal, the pope has been clear that he sees his curial reforms as an example for the whole Church.

Who has the power?

The Church says that bishops and others in positions of authority might exercise three kinds of functions, or munera, in the life of the Church — the offices of teaching, sanctifying, and governing, which flow the authority given by Jesus Christ to his apostles, and their successors.

While the idea has always been important, Vatican II took special care to emphasize that bishops have a special share in those functions.

Lumen gentium, Vatican Council II's dogmatic constitution on the Church, explained that "In his [episcopal] consecration a person is given an ontological participation in the sacred functions [munera]; this is absolutely clear from Tradition, liturgical tradition included."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts this more simply: "Christ himself chose the apostles and gave them a share in his mission and authority."

"Because it is joined with the episcopal order, the office of priests shares in the authority by which Christ himself builds up and sanctifies and rules his Body," the Catechism explains.

This link between the sacrament of ordination and the exercise of governing power in the Church is also defined in the Code of Canon Law, which says that "Those who are constituted in the order of the episcopate or the presbyterate receive the mission and capacity to act in the person of Christ the Head."

According to canon law, "those who have received sacred orders are qualified, according to the norm of the prescripts of the law, for the power of governance, which exists in the Church by divine institution and is also called the power of jurisdiction."

While the Church talks about ordination and authority in a particular way, lay people can participate in the governing life of the Church as well. Lay people fill roles like that of the chancellor of a diocese, a promoter of justice (a canonical public prosecutor), and even as judges on canonical tribunals.

But the Church's law defines their participation as "cooperation" in the power of governance, and the scope of that cooperating role is limited.

What has changed?

When Pope Francis issued Praedicate, the new constitution defined every curial role as essentially a delegated function of the office of the Bishop of Rome, saying that "each curial institution carries out its proper mission by virtue of the power it has received from the Roman Pontiff, in whose name it operates with vicarious power in the exercise of his primatial munus."

"For this reason, any member of the faithful can preside over a Dicastery or Office, depending on the power of governance and the specific competence and function of the Dicastery or Office in question." the constitution says.

That's being interpreted by some observers as a theological sea change — they argue it separates sacramental ordination from the capability to fill those Church offices which directly exercise significant governance prerogatives.

But others say that the limiting clause, "depending on the power of governance…" means the pope's announcement doesn't amount to much — that lay people are restricted from appointment to most significant curial offices, because they're not canonically (or theologically) capable of exercising the power of governance in their own right.

So which is it?

Some Vatican roles, like the head of the Dicastery for Catholic Education, could likely be filled by lay people without raising broad questions about the Church's self-understanding.

But could a lay person be placed in charge of the Dicasteries for the Doctrine of the Faith, or Clergy, or Divine Worship and be given the stable power over rule bishops on matters of faith and morals, governance of their own priests, or the administration of the sacraments?

Praedicate itself isn't clear on these questions - it offers a possibility, and a limit on that possibility, but no specifics.

And it doesn't address the implications of an administrative decision that raises deep theological questions about the power and purpose of sacred orders in the life of the Church.

That's what cardinals say they're asking about this week. Continue reading

Only 11 cardinals participated in the consistory in St Peter's Basilica all having been in quarantine for two weeks and all wore face masks during the ceremony.

Two new cardinals who were unable to be physically present in Rome for the ceremony - Bishop Cornelius Sim of Brunei and Archbishop José Advincula of the Philippines - attended via video connection.

They will receive a biretta, cardinal's ring and title connected with a Roman parish from their apostolic nuncio in their own country and at another time.

Coming from Rwanda, the US, Chile, Italy, Mexico, Brunei, Philippines and the Vatican, the new cardinals offer a new ethnic and geographical mix to those entitled to wear the red hat.

In 2013 52 per cent of the College was European, Francis has reduced this to 42 per cent.

Of the new cardinals, Grech, Semeraro, Kambanda, Gregory, Advincula, Aós, Sim, Lojudice and Gambetti are under the age of 80 and are eligible to vote in the conclave to elect the pope's successor.

Since 2014 Francis has named a total of 73 voting cardinals.

The geographical make-up of those voting cardinals named by Pope Francis works out:

Europe: 28 (38 percent)
North America: 5 (7 percent)
Asia-Pacific: 13 (18 percent))
Latin America-Caribbean: 15 (21 percent)
Sub-Saharan Africa: 10 (14 percent)
Middle East-North Africa: 2 (3 percent)

Although Francis is gradually moving the centre of power in the College away from Europe, in terms of strict numerical "justice", he must continue naming more cardinals in Latin America and the Caribbean, where the largest share of the world's Catholics reside.

Warning them not to allow their new red robes to become the colour of a secular 'eminence'", Francis issued a clear reminder of their purpose in his homily after reading an Gospel of

Referencing Mark's Gospel (10:32-45), Francis said 'the road' is the setting for the scene the Church's journey.

It is the road of life and history, which is salvation history insofar as it is travelled with Christ and leads to his paschal mystery, he explained.

Francis went on to point out that this Gospel passage is not merely a "backdrop" but also a "road sign" for us who today are journeying together with Jesus.

Jesus is our strength, who gives meaning to our lives and our ministry, he told the new cardinals.

"Jerusalem always lies ahead of us. The cross and the resurrection are part of our history; they are our "today" but also and always the goal of our journey."

Source

• Novena
• Novena
• Image: Voice of America

During the interview, he envisioned that "the Holy See will one day be led by the Pope surrounded by a college of cardinals in which there would be women."

The Rheims archbishop's musings reminded me of many years ago when I was much younger, and older Catholics were first daring to discuss the ordination of women.

Invariably the debates about the probability of ordained women surrendered to the question of whether such ordination was possible.

Here arguments against the possibility were raised by invoking pervasive misogyny, local cultures, theology, canon law, the Bible and even the intentionality of Jesus at the last supper!

After exhausting a host of objections to the possible, invariably a senior in the room would suggest, "Why not make women cardinals?"

This often prompted quizzical stares from mostly everyone, but the clever proponent would remind them that until recently there were, indeed, lay cardinals. "They didn't have to be ordained," the proponent would expertly conclude.

It was only a hundred years ago that the "new" Code of Canon Law (1917) decreed that cardinals had to be ordained.

Before that they were either from the laity or the ordained, though clearly the majority were the latter.

Ordination was introduced, in part, to correct abuse in the appointment of cardinals.

For instance, in 1735, Pope Clement XII made Luis Antonio de Borbón, son of King Felipe V of Spain, a cardinal, he was 8 years old. Ordination would give some surety that the person was an adult and theologically educated.

In 1983, the code required that cardinals be bishops.

We should not think, however, that these laws negated the possibility of popes making lay cardinals.

While we can rarely know what a pope intends to do, until he discloses it, there have been fairly consistent reports that Pope Paul VI wanted to or actually offered to make the French philosopher Jacques Maritain one, and later that Pope John Paul II offered the appointment to Mother Teresa.

Both persons reportedly declined the offer.

Moreover, in 2013 on these pages Jesuit Fr Frederico Lombardi, director of the Holy See's press office, commented that women cardinals were "theologically and theoretically … possible."

Like my seniors 50 years ago, he added, "Being a cardinal is one of those roles in the church for which, theoretically, you do not have to be ordained."

He said this, however, to quell speculation that a woman would be among those named for the next consistory.

Why should women cardinals matter?

Like the discussions 50 years ago, the Rheims archbishop's comments remind us of a variety of ways that the laity in general and women, in particular, can and should exercise authority and leadership in the church.

He entertained the question of women deacons, but he was much more interested in the diversity of leadership roles in the church that were not being filled by the laity nor especially by women whether religious or lay.

Thus he noted that he was "completely flabbergasted" that non-ordained religious brothers could vote at the Synod of Bishops' meetings, but women could not.

Reminding us that the ordained "are in principle neither more learned nor closer to God than the laity," he added, "The voice of all the baptized laity, from the moment they try to embrace Christianity, should be able to count as much as that of the clergy."

Then he turned to the question of competency: "Nothing prevents them from holding many more important functions in the workings of the institution, with everything being a matter of competence." Continue reading

The truncated transcript of Francis's lengthy interview with Mexico's Televisa reporter, Valentina Alazaraki, claimed Francis said he didn't know anything about accusations of McCarrick's sexual abuse before the accusations became public last year.

What it omitted, was Francis's claim that he didn't remember former nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, telling him in 2013 of McCarrick's penchant for sleeping with seminarians.

Communications coordinator Andrea Tornielli says the discrepancy was due to the quick turnaround time given to translating the interview from Spanish into Italian.

The original Spanish was considered the text of reference, he says.

Within minutes of being questioned about the Italian transcript, the full and corrected version of the quote appeared on the Italian site of the Vatican news portal, Vatican News.

In the interview Francis told Alazaraki he would have immediately spoken out if he had known about McCarrick.

When he did find out last year, he acted against McCarrick both before and after the Vatican process.

Before the process, he removed him from the College of Cardinals.

After it, when he was found guilty of solicitation in the Sacrament of Penance and "sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults," he dismissed him from the clerical state.

Vigano's allegations have been used by Francis' conservative critics to attack him.

The allegations appear to show Francis disregarded information that McCarrick preyed on seminarians and instead rehabilitated him from the restrictions Pope Benedict XVI imposed in 2008.

As a result, Francis' claim not to remember if Vigano told him about McCarrick now amounts to his defence against such criticism.

Last year, the Vatican communications office published a doctored photograph and a partial quote from a letter penned by retired Pope Benedict XVI that misrepresented its complete meaning. The then-prefect of the communications office had to resign as a result.

Source

• AP
• CNA
• America Magazine
• The Tablet
• Image: Zenit

The College of Cardinals is structured in three orders, or ranks: the order of "cardinal deacons," the order of "cardinal priests," and the order of "cardinal bishops."

There are customarily six cardinal bishops from the Latin Church, who are given a particular ceremonial title as the "titular bishops" of Rome's ancient suburbicarian sees. The dean of the College of Cardinals is also assigned as titular bishop of the Roman see of Ostia.

Eastern Catholic patriarchs who are cardinals are also cardinal bishops.

Though, in modern times, cardinal bishops do not actually govern the suburban dioceses in the vicinity of Rome, the custom of corresponding the rank of cardinal bishop to those dioceses is ancient.

The pope's new appointments break with that custom, which is established in canon law, as he has appointed cardinal bishops who will not be ceremonially connected to those suburbicarian sees. In fact, those sees already have titular bishops, each of whom is a cardinal bishop over the age of 80, the age at which cardinals are no longer eligible to vote in the conclave that elects a pope.

Those elevated to the rank of cardinal bishop are Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State; Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches; Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect for the Congregation of Bishops; Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of People.

Among these new cardinal bishops, Cardinal Filoni was until now a cardinal deacon, while the others were all cardinal priests.

The Pope's June 26 rescript says that popes have "always looked with fraternal fondness to the College of Cardinals," as they "offer a particular support to the mission of the Successor of Peter, bearing the valuable contribution of their experience and of their service to the particular Churches spread all over the world."

The rescript then noted that "in the last decades" the College of Cardinals has expanded, thus increasing the number of cardinal priests and deacons, while the number of cardinal bishops has stayed untouched with time, and so the pope made the decision to expand that group.

The decision derogates from canons 350 and 352 of the Code of Canon Law, and will come into effect since the next June 28.

All three ranks within the College of Cardinals have ancient historical roots. Cardinal deacons were anciently entrusted with the administration of the six offices of the Lateran Palace (the See of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope) and of the the seven departments of Rome, including care for poor. After Pope Sixtus V, they became 14, two for departments, and were given a "deaconry" of administration, that is, a church in Rome for which they were responsible.

The cardinal priests were those entrusted with the care of the most ancient Churches in Rome, called "titles," and are by tradition connected with a Roman parish. After ten full years as a cardinal deacon,"a cardinal can "opt" to become a cardinal priest.

There were originally seven cardinal bishops, the bishops of Rome's suburbicarian sees.

The present cardinal bishops, in addition those named today, are Tarcisio Bertone (Frascati), José Saraiva Martins (Palestrina), Roger Etchegaray (Porto Santa Rufina), Giovanni Battista Re (Poggio Mirteto) and Francis Arinze (Velletri-Segni).

Cardinal Patriarchs of Eastern Catholic Churches, who are also cardinal bishops are Patriarch Bechara-Boutros Rai, of Antioch of the Maronites; Patriarch Pierre Sfeir, emeritus of Antioch of Maronites; Patriarch Antonios Naguib, emeritus of Alexandria of the Coptics.

Cardinal-Elect Louis Raphael Sako, Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans, will be added to the list after the June 28 consistory.

The Pope choose to expand the rank of cardinal bishop to include the prefects of some Vatican offices, although some notable prefects are missing from the list.

Some have speculated that Cardinal-elect Luis Ladaria is likely to be appointed to the order of cardinal-bishop, as is as Cardinal-elect Konrad Krajewski, Papal Almoner.

In a recent interview with Reuters, Pope Francis said: "It think there are two long arms of the pope - that of being custodian of the faith, and there the work is done by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the prefect has to be a cardinal, and the other long arm of the pope is the almoner, and there must be a cardinal there. These are the two long arms of the pope - faith and charity."

Another rescript will be needed if the Pope wants to derogate again from the norms of canon law, in order to include other cardinals in the rank of cardinal-bishop.

Far from being just honorific titles, the ranks of cardinals give them specific obligations.

For example, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, elected from among the cardinal bishops, presides at the conclave for the election of the pope. The Dean has also the responsibility to communicate the pope's death to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See and to the heads of nations, he represents the Holy See during the sede vacante, and he is the one who asks the pope-elect if he accepts the election, and what name he will take.

If the new pope is not a bishop, the Dean has the right to ordain him.

If the Dean is older than 80, and so not eligible to take part in the conclave, the senior cardinal bishop presides over the conclave.

First published in the Boston Pilot. Shared as requested.

Their role would be similar to that of the College of Cardinals and would offer more opportunity for women's leadership in the church.

Francis made Arborelius Sweden's first cardinal in a consistory on Wednesday.

He said he thinks "it's very important to find a broader way of involving women at various levels in the church."

"The role of women is very, very important in society, in economics, but in the church sometimes we are a bit behind," Arborelius says.

In this respect he has wide support, including from the female advisory board for the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Their wish is to send an "electric shock" that will open discussion on women's roles in the Church.

"The Church is a male-dominated world, but the [wider] world in which it exists is both male and female," Consuelo Corradi, vice rector for research and international relations at the LUMSA University of Rome, told Crux.

"The global church needs to enter a continued dialogue with women," she says.

Arborelius noted the church has in the past sought women's advice, and mentioned that Pope John Paul II had often sought counsel from Mother Teresa and Chiara Lubich, founder of the Focolare movement.

"Maybe it could be made more official," he suggested.

"We have a College of Cardinals, but we could have a college of women who could give advice to the pope."

The College of Cardinals is the body of all the cardinals of the Catholic Church.

Cardinals are usually senior Catholic prelates who serve as bishops in dioceses or in the Vatican's central bureaucracy and have a special tie to the pope as the symbolic heads of Rome's parish churches.

Source

• National Catholic Reporter
• Crux
• Image: franciscanmedia.org

In fact, he has a surprising sounding description for them: "We aren't old men, we're grandfathers," he said.

"We are grandfathers called to dream and to give our dreams to the young people of today. They need it so that from our dreams, they can draw the strength to prophesy and carry out their task," he told about 50 members of the College of Cardinals.

As grandfathers, the cardinals should know their grandchildren are watching and looking to them, Francis explained.

Therefore he expects the Cardinals to share their experiences to help young people find meaning in their lives.

Francis went on to point out that the Bible says Abraham was 75 years old when God called him.

"He was more or less our age. He was about to retire ... with the weight of old age, that old age that brings aches, illness," Abraham heard God call him "as if he were a scout," the pope said. God tells him, "Go. Look. And hope."

He and the cardinals were like Abraham in that respect, Francis explained.

"He tells us that now is not the time to shut down our lives or to end our stories."

This means he and the cardinals cannot be focused on "the melancholy of our story," but must be dreamers who continue to look to the future with hope, knowing that God continues to act in human history.

Source

• National Catholic Reporter
• Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

The Vatican says the consistory will have a courtesy meeting today and Mass will be celebrated tomorrow, which is the Solemnity of the Saints Apostles Peter and Paul.

At this time Francis will impose the Pallia on the new cardinals. (The Pallia is a vestment symbolising the jurisdiction delegated to them by the Holy See).

The traditional pre-consistory meeting is an opportunity for the Pope to consult with members of the College of Cardinals, who act as his closest advisors.

Francis held pre-consistory meetings in February 2014 and 2015. They lasted two days, and enabled Francis to hear about issues and concerns from around the world.

He also updated the cardinals on Vatican-related issues and those of the universal Church.

Last November when Francis chose not to hold pre-consistory meetings, Vatican journalist Marco Tosatti speculated it was to prevent the "Dubia cardinals" from meeting Francis.

He said by sidestepping the pre-consistory meetings, Francis prevented the dubia cardinals from using the opportunity to press him to reply to their demands for clarification of Amoris Laetitia.

Source

• National Catholic Register
• Catholic Culture
• Image: The Independent

In 2011, a Spanish bishop claimed that Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, then head of the Pontifical Council for the Family, had declared that the United Nations was conspiring to make half the world's population homosexual over the next 20 years.

Like the U.N. quest for world peace, health and education, if such a program indeed exist it seems to be behind schedule.

A more recent asinine declaration by a cardinal comes from Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments.

Repeating a call he has made many times, in a recent interview the cardinal said he wants priests to face east when celebrating the liturgy.

In my childhood parish in New York City, built long before Vatican II, facing east would have entailed the clergy and congregation turning 90 degrees to the left toward the side wall of the building, since the altar was at the south end of the structure.

The plot of land on which it stood allowed for no other layout. In fact, because of the layout of streets in New York, most sanctuaries are at either the north or south end of churches. Even churches with an east-west layout often have the sanctuary at the west end.

Presumably, Cardinal Sarah is not calling upon congregations to do a military-style "left face," "right face" or "about face" toward the rising sun.

What he seems to actually want is for the clergy and congregation to face the same direction when offering prayer to God. But, that direction often, or even generally, cannot be the east.

There may be merit to such an opinion, but the cardinal does his position no favor by using such patently stupid phrasing to present it. It merely demonstrates ignorance of the actual places where Catholics gather to worship.

The cardinal seems to use the phrase because it literally translates the Latin, "ad orientem," and Cardinal Sarah is among those committed to fidelity to Latin even when it becomes nonsense. Continue reading

• Father William Grimm, MM, is publisher of ucanews.com and is based in Tokyo.

Italian Cardinal Loris Capovilla, who served St John XXIII before and after he became pope, died in Bergamo, near Milan.

Cardinal Capovilla was born in Pontelongo, Italy, in 1915, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1940.

A journalist before starting to work for the future saint, he was an energetic and eloquent storyteller, drawing on his remarkable and vividly detailed memory.

Continue reading

That is according to an Italian journalist writing about the February consistory at the Vatican.

In an article for the Turin daily, La Stampa, on March 24, Marco Tosatti wrote that Cardinal Kasper's plan was greeted with a storm of criticism.

In his address to the cardinals on February 22, the German cardinal argued that Catholic divorcees who remarry should, after a period of atonement, be allowed to seek re-admittance to the sacraments.

Tosatti claimed the vast majority of cardinals who spoke in the subsequent discussion criticised the proposal.

Tosatti named 10 cardinals as speaking in this vein including Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

Cardinal Tauran reportedly said he felt the proposed change would do nothing to further the Church's support for the family or its relations with Islam.

Another alleged critic was Cardinal Camillo Ruini, former Vicar General for the Diocese of Rome, who according to Tosatti claimed that 85 per cent of the cardinals who had commented on Kasper's proposal opposed it.

Tosatti reports that other Kasper critics included the President of the Italian Bishops' Conference, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Angela Scola, the Prefect of the Apostolic Penitentiary, Cardinal Mauro Piacenza and Cardinal Battista Re, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Bishops.

When given leave by Pope Francis to reply at the end of the discussion, Cardinal Kasper is said to have shown his "irritation" with his critics.

The Pope had asked Cardinal Kasper to introduce a discussion at the consistory about family life ahead of October's synod.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, also criticised Cardinal Kasper.

"There are many difficulties with the text of Cardinal Kasper," he said in an interview with the Catholic television station EWTN.

Cardinal Burke said that he expected "the error of his [Kasper's] approach to become ever clearer" in coming weeks as theologians and canonists examine it.

Among those who have gone on record as sympathetic to Kasper's proposals are Cardinals Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, Karl Lehmann of Mainz, Rainer Maria Woelki of Berlin, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Freiburg and Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga of Honduras.

Cardinals Marx and Rodríguez are members of the C8 group of cardinals appointed to advise the Pope.

Sources

• The Tablet
• Rorate Caeli
• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Zimbio

The first term of comparison is the tension between Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles and his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony. On Jan. 31, Gomez announced that Mahony would "no longer have any administrative or public duties" because of failures to protect children from abuse, documented in files released by the archdiocese. That triggered an open letter to Gomez from Mahony acknowledging mistakes, but insisting he went on to make Los Angeles "second to none" in keeping children safe.

Mahony remains a priest and bishop in good standing, and he really hasn't had any administrative role since stepping down in March 2011. The practical effect of the action thus is limited, but symbolically it amounts to what Jesuit Fr. Tom Reese has called a "public shaming."

So far, the Vatican hasn't said much other than it's paying attention and clarifying that the action applies only to Los Angeles.

Behind door No. 2 lies the highly public spat in 2010 between Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna, Austria, and Italian Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a former Secretary of State and still the dean of the College of Cardinals.

For those whose memories may have dimmed, a series of clerical abuse scandals exploded across Europe in early 2010, which among other things cast a critical spotlight on Benedict XVI's personal record. Sodano created a media sensation in April 2010 by calling that criticism "petty gossip" during the Vatican's Easter Mass.

In a session with Austrian journalists not long afterward, Schönborn not only said Sodano had "deeply wronged" abuse victims, but he also charged that Sodano had blocked an investigation of Schönborn's disgraced predecessor, Cardinal Hans Hermann Gröer, who had been accused of molesting seminarians and monks and who resigned in 1995. Schönborn reportedly said that then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, wanted to take action, but he lost an internal Vatican argument to Sodano. Continue reading

Sources

• John L Allen Jr in National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Daily News Los Angeles

John L Allen Jr is NCR senior correspondent.

Among the 22 new cardinals receiving a biretta on February 18 from Pope Benedict XVI, 10 hold positions in the Roman Curia. Italians comprise seven of the 22, making them the largest group. Only three are from outside Europe or North America. So this consistory hardly reflects the recent demographic shifts in the Church, or the increasingly important part played by the developing world.

This has prompted the leading Indian theologian, Michael Amaladoss SJ, to reflect on the Church's attitude to multiculturalism in general.

This report first appeared in the Indian Jesuit magazine Jivan.

One of the major concerns about globalization is that, through market forces and media bombardment, one single consumer culture could come to be enforced upon the rest of the world; a culture that emanates from the USA.

It insinuates itself via mass media, technology, communications and the way people dress and feed themselves. It does not concern itself so much with deeper cultural elements such as language, philosophy, literature and ways of living, thinking and relating.

Thankfully, this is still a multicultural world. I was surprised to hear that stated recently by the French Bishops' Conference, as the French are usually exceptionally fierce on matters of national culture. However, a statement from them last October spoke of the end of the West's traditional, distinctive identity, due to waves of immigration.

The desire to impose one culture upon another remains a constant temptation, locally as well as globally. In India there is a dominant culture that seeks to make all others subordinate, which has an impact especially on the Dalits and indigenous peoples. Indeed, some would say that the unity of a nation depends on the unity of its culture; some would like to see total religious homogeneity.

So the defense of multiculturalism and religious pluralism is a necessary and constant duty, and we are pleased that they both receive protection from the Constitution of India, with special measures for the protection of minorities. Read more

Sources

• UCA News
• Image: The Boston Globe