VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider
At today’s Angelus Pope Francis read out the names of 20 bishops and archbishops who will be raised to the dignity of the cardinalate at the upcoming Consistory on February 14th. 15 of them will be eligible to vote in a Conclave
ANDREA TORNIELLI
VATICAN CITY
Pope Francis has announced the names of the new cardinals who will receive the red biretta this coming February 14th. There will be 20 new “senators of the Church”, from across 14 nations and five Continents. 15 of them are under 80 years old and would therefore be eligible to vote in a potential Conclave. Five of them are over 80 . …
Francis seems to have respected the unwritten rule of not creating the current archbishop of a see with a retired cardinal under 80 years of age, a cardinal. Potential US candidates in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Chicago will not therefore be receiving the red biretta and neither will the new Archbishop of Madrid.
Dominique Mamberti, the new Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, is the only Curia member appearing in the list of new cardinals. The Vatican’s former “minister of foreign affairs” was not yet a cardinal when he carried out the only role within a Holy See dicastery where the title of cardinal is a given(as established in John Paul II’s Apostolic Constitution “Pastor Bonus”).
None of the Pontifical Council presidents are to be created cardinals. Pontifical Councils are not ordinarily presided over by cardinals (except in the case of the ecumenism council led by Kurt Koch) and are going to be merged as part of the Curia reform process currently underway. The Librarian of the Holy Roman Church, the Frenchman, Jean-Louis Bruguès, did not feature in the list of cardinals-to-be either. Francis’ preference for diocesan bishops is therefore evident, as well as his focus on the southern parts of the world.
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