VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
I-Media news agency broke the news: in February Francis will be naming some new cardinals but before he does this he will gather all the College’s members together for a consultation
ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY
French news agency I-Media has revealed that new cardinals are to be created in a Consistory which is to be held next 21 and 22 February. Pope Francis is to hold a meeting with all cardinals in Rome to discuss reforms with them.
As Vatican Insider wrote in a recent article, 120 cardinals eligible to vote according to the limit set by Paul VI. In February 2014 there will be 14 vacancies waiting to be filled by new cardinal electors below the age of 80 and this figure will rise to 16 at the end of March. So this is the number of cardinal electors Francis will be able to create.
In the Roman Curia there are three prelates who are cardinals but do not have the biretta: the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, Beniamino Stella and the new Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin. The leaders of a number of archdioceses (Turin and Venice in Italy) which traditionally produced a lot of cardinals have not been given the biretta. It is too early, however, to make any predictions.
In the next few months the Curia’s structures and organisation will be radically reshaped and the process of confirming and replacing members will be complete. It is not known for certain what criteria Francis will use when selecting the new cardinals.
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