Are we reading too much into Pope Francis’s upcoming consistory, which could influence the choice of his successor, asks John H Allen Jr.
ROME – When Pope Francis creates 21 new cardinals on 30 September, including 18 under the age of 80 and thus eligible to vote for his successor, the focus obviously will be on who’s in the mix as new Princes of the Church, and rightly so.
Not only does this new crop include the Holy Father’s most important theological and doctrinal adviser in the person of Argentinian Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández – who automatically becomes a leading contender to carry forward his mentor’s legacy – but there are at least three other figures who also appear to be credible papabili, meaning candidates to be the next pope.
There’s Italian Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, formerly nuncio in London and Prefect of the Dicastery for Eastern Churches. He has deep knowledge of Russia and Orthodoxy, at a time when the next pope is destined to inherit the fallout from the war in Ukraine. There’s French Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, who could deliver the substance of the Francis papacy but with greater diplomatic caution.
And there’s Italian Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, whose deftness at navigating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might be perceived to equip him to heal the tensions of a divided church.
Gugerotti and Pizzaballa also benefit from being Italian, in a moment when some veteran churchmen are whispering that after three consecutive outsiders, each of whom tried to reform the Vatican with varying degrees of success, maybe it’s time to choose a native.
Yet sometimes there’s as much to learn from who isn’t on the guest list for a party as who is, and Pope Francis’s looming consistory, the ninth of his papacy, is just such a case.
To begin, there had been considerable speculation in recent months that the next time the Holy Father bestowed red hats, he might offer one to Ukraine, as another gesture of solidarity with what he’s called its “martyred” people.
The choice might have fallen on Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, though some observers believe he may have taken himself out of the running with a series of interviews in which he’s voiced the Ukrainian desire, however respectfully, that Pope Francis be more forthright in his condemnation of Russian aggression.
(As an ecclesiological matter, one could make the argument that eastern bishops shouldn’t be named cardinals at all, since it makes them part of the clergy of Rome, but that didn’t stop Pope John Paul II from appointing Shevchuk’s predecessor, Lubomyr Husar, to the Sacred College.)
Some suspected that perhaps the honour would fall to Lithuanian Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, the nuncio to Ukraine. In 2016, Pope Francis named Mario Zenari a cardinal while leaving him in place as the nuncio to Syria, a clear sign of solidarity amid that country’s vicious civil war.
That the Holy Father didn’t distribute a red hat to Ukraine will inevitably be read as another effort to thread the needle between concern for the humanitarian consequences of the war and not taking sides in the geopolitics of the conflict – with the mixed reactions that such a delicate balancing act will generate.
More broadly, what’s striking is how, once again, Pope Francis’s predilection for elevating cardinals from the peripheries has come at the expense of churchmen who conventionally would be considered to represent the Church’s centre.
To take the most obvious example, the two Italians in this consistory are a Vatican official and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, while the traditional red-hat sees of Milan, Turin, Venice and Naples still have no cardinals. The omission of Archbishop Mario Delpini of Milan is especially noteworthy, given that Milan is the fifth-largest Catholic archdiocese in the world after Kinshasa, Guadalajara, Puebla de los Ángeles and São Paulo.
In addition, the major European archdioceses of Paris, Berlin, Prague and Kraków also remain without cardinals. Leaving Kraków off the list is especially irritating to some, given that it’s the home diocese of the late Pope John Paul II.
Moreover, it’s not as if the pontiff was reluctant to give a new red hat to Europe – he named an auxiliary bishop in Portugal, giving the patriarchal see of Lisbon two cardinals while several European population centres have none.
Francis did elevate one American in the person of Archbishop Robert Prevost, Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops, but he left off other obvious North American candidates – most notably Archbishop José Gómez of Los Angeles, by far the largest diocese north of Mexico in terms of population, and Archbishop Frank Leo of Toronto.
In Africa, Pope Francis elevated a coadjutor archbishop in Tanzania (meaning he has the right of succession when the incumbent resigns), creating the odd dynamic of an assistant who technically outranks the prelate he serves, but skipped Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja, Nigeria, the capital city of Africa’s most populous nation.
Another significant omission is Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney, Australia, a major jurisdiction which has been led by a cardinal since 1885 (with one exception). Perhaps a case could have been made if Fisher had to wait while Cardinal George Pell, formerly of Sydney, was still around, but of course Pell died on 10 January.
What are we to make of these disinvited prelates? To begin with, Francis is history’s first pope from the global south, and he reigns at a time when more than two-thirds of the world’s Catholic population lives outside the traditional boundaries of western civilisation, a share that will rise to three-quarters by mid-century. From one point of view, therefore, his drive to elevate cardinals from other spots on the global map is no more than a belated acknowledgement of demographic reality.
Moreover, there is no natural law entitlement to become a cardinal. It’s always a personal choice by a pope, who has every right to name whomever he likes.
On the other hand, from a governance point of view, a pope also has to be aware that when he names a new bishop to a see that’s accustomed to having a cardinal and then repeatedly denies that bishop the recognition, it will be taken as a vote of no confidence, whether that’s what’s intended or not. As a result, the pope de facto is weakening the authority of these figures, all of whom preside over jurisdictions fairly crucial to Catholic fortunes.
Gómez, for instance, has now been passed over 12 times for the red hat. The first five could perhaps have been explained by the fact that his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony, was still under 80, but the last seven can’t help but be seen as deliberate.
Beyond that, if we use the terribly inexact metric of liberal v conservative, it’s also hard to miss the point that virtually all of the usual suspects glossed over by Pope Francis belong to what one might conventionally call the centre-right of Catholic opinion, while those chosen by the pontiff are more to the centre-left.
Does that make it more likely that the next conclave will choose a pope like Francis? Perhaps, but two cautions are needed.
First, the preponderance of cardinals from the peripheries means that relatively little is actually known about many of the electors next time round. If anyone feels they can speak confidently about what cardinals from Malaysia, for example, or Laos, or Tonga, or Cape Verde, will be looking for, they’ve got more gumption than most.
Second, it’s worth recalling that, in 2013, a body of cardinals appointed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI elected Francis.
If you’re nonetheless determined to see Francis as trying to stack the deck, by all means, feel free to draw that conclusion. Just remember, the key word there is “trying”.
John H Allen Jr is the Catholic Herald’s Special Vatican Correspondent in Rome.
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