The conclave that will elect the successor to Pope Francis begins to take shape. The Pontiff, at the Angelus last Sunday, surprisingly announced the celebration of a new consistory to create 21 new cardinals on September 30, 18 of whom are under 80 years of age and, therefore, electors the next time they the cardinals shut themselves up in the Sistine Chapel.
Most of them are prelates with a marked international profile and young – the average age of those chosen is 62.9 years – so it is clear that the Pontiff wants them to form part of the College of Cardinals for years. It is the ninth consistory – the ceremony in which the Pontiff awards the new purples – of the pontificate of the Argentine pope, who has practically held one a year, and who has already left his mark on the future of the Church: 72% of the cardinals eligible to vote in the next conclave have been elected during his papacy. Therefore, it is very likely that his successor reflects, at least in part, his vision of the Church.
According to the precedent established by Paul VI, the number of cardinal electors should not exceed 120. But both John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis have sometimes exceeded this limit. With the new cardinals that will be created at the end of September, there will be 137 members of the College of Cardinals with the right to enter the next conclave, since two Italians – chosen by Benedict XVI – will turn 80 before that date. When it is evident that this pontificate is in its final phase –although it is not clear how long it will last–, the announcement has generated special attention, because little by little it is possible to begin to study the components of the next conclave.
Although some analysts already anticipate that it is still early to make pools of candidates, because the final list of voters is still not finished. “We still don’t have the final numbers, because I think there will be another consistory at the end of next year, before the Jubilee of 2025. At least 20 cardinals will exceed 80 years of age in the next two years and there are a few more patients, so It is to be expected”, points out journalist Gerard O’Connell, author of The Election of Pope Francis, an exhaustive x-ray of the 2013 conclave.
In his announcement, leaning out of the window of the Apostolic Palace, the Pope said that the origin of the new cardinals reflects the “universality of the Church.” As on previous occasions, the choice of cardinals demonstrates Francis’ willingness to prioritize the peripheral Church, with appointments from dioceses far from an increasingly secularized Europe. For example, he has chosen the Archbishop of Cape Town, the South African Stephen Brislin; the Tanzanian Protase Rugambwa, Coadjutor Archbishop of Tabora; the Archbishop of Penang (Malaysia), Sebastian Francis; to the one from Hong Kong, Stephen Chow Sau-yan, or to the one from Juba, the Sudanese Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla.
Little by little, Bergoglio has been including new bishops who express their concerns, such as attention to minorities or interreligious dialogue, and has rewarded dioceses that had never had cardinals, while not following the tradition of elevating archbishops to cardinals. from Venice or Milan, who still do not have a cardinal.
“The inclusion of the new cardinals in the diocese of Rome also manifests the inseparable link between the See of Peter and the particular Churches spread throughout the world,” explained the 86-year-old Pontiff, who has just been operated on for an abdominal hernia. which caused him severe pain.
However, on this occasion, half of the names of the men who will receive the red cap in September come from the Old Continent. Three of them are Spanish: the recently appointed Archbishop of Madrid, José Cobo – although his predecessor, Carlos Osoro Sierra, is still an elector; the major rector of the Salesian Congregation, Ángel Fernández Artime, and François-Xavier Bustillo, the young bishop (54 years old) who is in charge of the diocese of Ajaccio, on the island of Corsica. With them, Spain confirms itself as a cardinal power, since it is the second country in the world with the most cardinals, only behind Italy. In all of Francis’ consistories there has been at least one Spaniard.
Three of the appointments were expected, those of important leaders of the Holy See who had not yet been created cardinals. The first, the recently elected prefect of the Dicastery for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Argentine Víctor Manuel Fernández –better known as Tucho–, a personal friend of Francisco, who has been criticized because thirty years ago he wrote a book entitled Sáname with your mouth. The art of kissing, which was intended to be a catechesis on love for young people. The prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, the American Robert Francis Prevost, and that of Oriental Churches, the Italian Claudio Gugerotti, have also been promoted. With them the heads of 14 of the 16 Vatican dicasteries (ministries) will be cardinals.
Others have been more surprising, such as the Auxiliary of Lisbon, Américo Manuel Alves Aguiar, or the Pole Grzegorz Rys, Archbishop of Lodz. In addition, he wanted to reward bishops who have carried out important work in complicated settings, such as the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, or the French Christophe Pierre, representative of the Holy See in the United States.
“Names are made to surprise. The Pope is irritated when news leaks and he does not discuss it with anyone. It is not a legend that many do not find out until now, ”explains Giovanni Maria Vian, an expert in Church history and former director of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.
Another feature is that not only are they not a homogeneous group. The Pope chooses candidates so distant that on many occasions they do not know each other, so it will not be easy for them to form currents or reach agreements in the next conclave. Therefore, it is wrong to think that the majority of cardinals created by Francis form a unitary “Bergoglian” group, as feared by the ultra-conservative opposition to the Pontiff. “That he has elected so many cardinals does not mean that all of them are going to opt for another Francis. Conclaves are absolutely unpredictable. Very few knew how to guess Bergoglio’s election,” recalls Vian about the 2013 conclave.
