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The pope’s 13 new cardinals and the next conclave

Francis has chosen nine new cardinal-electors, but his most decisive pick may be one of the four men who are already beyond the voting age

La Croix International

It finally happened. 

Pope Francis on October 25 announced that he’s decided to hold another ordinary consistory to create new cardinals.

The announcement had been expected the previous Sunday, but it seems the 83-year-old Jesuit pope was not amused that somebody “leaked” the news and he decided to hold it back for another week.

Francis named 13 men who will get the prestigious red hat.

Nine of them, including an Italian Franciscan who is not yet a bishop, are eligible to vote in a conclave. The other four are already 80 or older and cannot participate in the election of the next pope. 

These men will formally become cardinals at a Vatican ceremony scheduled for Nov. 28 and Francis is likely to celebrate Mass with them the next day, the First Sunday of Advent. Or at least with those who come for the consistory. 

The Vatican has just returned to an almost complete lockdown because of an explosion of new coronavirus cases in Italy. As of next week, the pope will go back to broadcasting his Wednesday general audience online from the Apostolic Library, rather than in the presence of visitors. 

So it’s not clear if all the cardinals-designate can or will actually show up. Their presence is not necessary as it was explained here a couple of weeks ago. 

The list of those Francis has chosen to join the Church’s most exclusive “club” in this seventh consistory of his pontificate is, to say the least, “interesting”. 

The nine who will help elect the next pope

Let’s start with the nine cardinal-electors. Four of the first six on the list come as no real surprise or novelty.

Cardinals-elect Mario Grech (the 63-year-old Maltese secretary general of the Synod of Bishops), Marcello Semeraro (the nearly 73-year-old Italian prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints), Wilton Gregory (Archbishop of Washington, also soon to be 73) and Celestino Aós Braco OFM Capuchin (the 75-year-old Archbishop of Santiago, Chile) are all in posts that have been held by a cardinal before.

As in his previous six previous consistories, the real news is who is not on the list.

Francis once again decided to deny the red hat to a number of men who lead major archdioceses around the world – such as Venice and Los Angeles – that are traditionally headed by a cardinal.

Like he’s done in the earlier consistories, however, the Latin American pope has again elected to give a conclave vote to bishops (and a simple priest) that come from smaller dioceses and places that have never had a cardinal before.

Such is the case with Cardinal-designate Antoine Kambanda. The archbishop of Kigali, who turns 62 on November 10, will be Rwanda’s first member of the Church’s electoral college.

Then there is Cardinal-elect Jose Fuerte Advincula, 68, of the Philippines. For the past 11 years he’s been archbishop of Capiz, a mid-size diocese by the standards of Asia’s most Catholic country.

It’s possible that the pope could move him from the Filipino “seafood capital” to the country’s most important city and real capital, Manila. He would thus fill a vacancy that was created earlier this year when Cardinal Antonio Tagle was called to Rome to head the Vatican’s powerful evangelization dicastery, Propaganda Fide.

A cardinal from the “peripheries”

The only cardinal-elector of this new group that Francis plucked from the “peripheries”, as he’s been inclined to do in the past, is Cardinal-designate Cornelius Sim.

The 69-year-old has been the apostolic vicar of Brunei Darussalam since 2004. There are only 17,000 Catholics among the 470,000 inhabitants of this tiny nation located on the island of Borneo, surrounded by Malaysia and the South China Sea.

The cardinal-designate is the only bishop in a country that has all of three parishes.

Many Italians are upset that Francis has again deprived archbishops in Venice, Turin and Palermo from getting the cardinal’s hat. But they cannot complain too loudly.

Francis very shrewdly named three of their countrymen electors. But two of them were not expected.

Italians destined for bigger things

Cardinal-designate Augusto Paolo Lojudice, 56, has been Archbishop of Siena since May 2019 after spending four years as an auxiliary bishop of Rome.

The last cardinal to head this Tuscan diocese was a man named Celio Piccolimini and that was in the late 17th century. This particular Piccolomini was also the last of long line of bishops from this prominent noble family. Two of them – Pius II and Pius III – were elected popes.

Cardinal-elect Lojudice is probably not in line to succeed Francis, but the current pope likely has plans to make him the next president of the Italian Episcopal Conference. And that could happen soon.

The current president, Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, is already 78 years old. And in the past several days he tested positive for COVID-19.

Plucked from the friary

The third cardinal-elector from Italy came as a real shocker. He’s Friar Mauro Gambetti, a 55-year-old Conventual Franciscan (Grey Friar) who is the “custos” or guardian (house superior) of the Sacro Convento of Assisi.

That’s the “monastery” next to the famous basilica where one finds the tomb of St. Francis.

Cardinal-designate Gambetti is obviously destined for a new assignment, probably as a bishop in an Italian diocese (Turin, perhaps?) or in some other office, most likely in the Vatican.

What would he do if he were to remain in Assisi? His term as custos of the Sacro Convento will soon be over. In fact, the Conventuals have already appointed his successor.

“If I should forget you Jerusalem…”

Meanwhile, Pope Francis has named another 55-year-old Italian Franciscan the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. He’s Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, a member of the Order of Friars Minor, the largest male branch of the so-called “Franciscan Family”.

Pizzaballa had been apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarchate since 2016 and it was thought that, not being Arab, he would be brought to head a diocese in Italy.

He's not part of the group of newly announced cardinals, but might there be a red hat in his future, too? Jerusalem is, after all, the place where it all started. It is the Mother Church of Christianity.

And, today, it is also part of what could be called the “periphery”. Christians, especially those in communion with Rome, certainly are a minority in the region of the Middle East.

A couple of cardinals "in pectore"?

When it was first suggested last July that the pope was intent on making more cardinals this calendar year, the word was that the Vatican had ordered 15 rings for the occasion. If that is true, who were (or still are) the intended recipients of those other two rings and red hats?

They could be for cardinals Francis has already selected in pectore – that is, without announcing their names at this time because current political difficulties or other factors make it impossible or imprudent.

It is said that John Paul II carefully pondered giving the red hat to Archbishop Michel Sabbah, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from 1987-2008.

But the Holy See was in a delicate dance with the State of Israel over Church rights and the forging of diplomatic relations. The Israelis were vehemently opposed to the idea of Sabbah, an Arab Christian born in Nazareth, becoming a cardinal.

However, Pizzaballa is a very different character. Although he’s lived in Jerusalem since 1990, he is not an Arab-speaker. Instead, he’s fluent in modern Hebrew.

The current Israeli leaders would probably oppose any Vatican plans to permanently post a cardinal in what they call the “Jewish State”. But if there were anyone they might be persuaded to accept, it would be someone like Pizzaballa.

There are bishops in other places where it is even more plausible that Pope Francis may have named a cardinal or two in pectore. One obviously thinks of China or Turkey. Perhaps the Arab Peninsula. Or what of North Korea?

We may never know. We must wait to see if or when the pope decides he can finally reveal their names.

The Gang of Four: elders who cannot vote

Oh, yes… Francis also announced the names of four men who are age 80 or older who will get the coveted red hat.

Since men of this age cannot vote in a conclave, the only right and duty that distinguishes cardinals from any other bishop, the over-80s are often referred to as “honorary cardinals”.

And mostly that’s what they are. They enter the college already retired. And often they are academics, theologians and lifetime mid-level Vatican officials. In short, they will have little influence on the big decisions that are made in Rome or at a conclave.

Two men from this group that the pope will make cardinals next month are somewhat different.

The prophetic voice

Cardinal-designate Raniero Cantalamessa is an 86-year-old Capuchin Franciscan priest who has been the Preacher of the Papal Household since the pontificate of John Paul II. He was a pioneer of the Catholic Pentecostals Movement in the late 1960s, better known today as the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

He is a prophetic preacher and, at times, he can be a firebrand. He could be a persuasive voice in pre-conclave talks that all cardinals – both those who can and those who cannot vote – are obliged to attend before the electors are locked in the Sistine Chapel to select the next Bishop of Rome.

But there is one other man, an 80-year-old, whose influence at the Vatican should not be under-estimated – not now nor at the next conclave, if it should take place in the next couple of years, which is very likely. 

A very rare bird 

Cardinal-designate Silvano Tomasi may be the single most important name Francis put on the biglietto (the list) for the November 28 consistory.

But you would not know this by reading press reports, which have focused almost exclusively on Tomasi’s 13 years as the Holy See’s permanent observer at the UN offices in Geneva. 

Italian-born, but a naturalized US citizen, he is a member of the Scalabrini Missionaries, a religious congregation dedicated to caring for immigrants and migrants. 

Reports have mostly concluded that the pope is making Tomasi an “honorary cardinal” in recognition of his service in promoting unilateral diplomacy during his time in Geneva.

Somewhat more astute Vatican watchers, however, have pointed out that it’s the cardinal-designate’s expertise in the field of migration that has earned him the red hat. 

That’s a bit closer to the truth. Tomasi worked for a number of years at the now-defunct Pontifical Council for Migrants and Itinerants and did brilliant work as its secretary (or No. 2 official – the one that runs daily operations) from 1989-1996.

An unexpected, but life-changing career change

When the head of that office – the future Cardinal Giovanni Chelli – was about to retire, experts in migration were pushing to have Tomasi take over the top job. But the Cardinal Secretary of State, Angelo Sodano, was saving the seat for some lifelong papal diplomat he could have John Paul reward with a red hat. 

As a consolation prize, Sodano had Tomasi – who was then still a priest – named apostolic nuncio to Ethiopia and Eritrea in 1996. It was hardly a plum diplomatic post, but the newly ordained Archbishop Tomasi did stellar work.

He was then sent to Geneva in 2003 where he was saddled with being the Vatican’s voice at numerous UN agencies, most of which dealt with issues – that he admitted – were beyond his competence. But he found resources and people who helped inform and shape the excellent work he did.

Archbishop Tomasi returned to Rome in 2016 after his “retirement”. He had early stages of Parkinson’s and most people thought he would lead a quiet life in a Scalabrinian community.

A hidden hand behind Vatican reforms

But Pope Francis had other plans and quietly gave him a new and not much publicized task – one of the most important in the current pope’s effort to reform the Roman Curia.

Francis entrusted Tomasi with overseeing the creation of the department now known as the Dicastery of Promoting Integral Human Development, which is headed by Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana and has Cardinal Michael Czerney as one of its department heads.

It was mammoth challenge; much bigger than most people who have never worked in the Vatican might appreciate.

But Tomasi – with tact, diplomacy, trustworthiness and genuine affability – was able to merge several previously existing Vatican offices, including the one where he had once served as secretary, into a single super-dicastery without causing a civil war.

Vatican officials agree that it was just short of working a miracle. 

Pope Francis immediately recognized Tomasi’s skillfulness in human relations and also appointed him to flank Cardinal Angelo Becciu, pontifical delegate to the Order of Malta, to help reform that Vatican-affiliated organization.

Now that Becciu has been forced to relinquish his rights as a cardinal, it is expected that the pope will make Tomasi the pontifical delegate.

These are the real reasons why Pope Francis is making him a cardinal. And not just for the present, but also for that time -- probably in the not too distant future -- when the cardinals are called to elect a new pope.

You can bet that Cardinal Silvano Tomasi will play a key role in shaping the conclave. He knows all the players as well as anyone. And with his unique skillset he will be moderator, if not a kingmaker.

He may be the most important cardinal this very unconventional pope has created up to now.

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