2023-07-10 12:00:00
July 10, 2023 / 5:00 a.m.
Pope Francis has announced an ordinary consistory to be held next September to create 21 new Cardinals.
The Holy Father will create 18 new Cardinals with the right to vote. He will also create another 3 cardinals over the age of 80, so they will not have the chance to choose in a future conclave. He announced this on Sunday, July 9, after finishing the Angelus prayer.
One of the reasons that the Pope could have had to convene the consistory is that by the end of 2023, since seven Cardinals will have exceeded 80 years of age, only 114 voters will remain.
However, according to Andrea Tornielli, Director of the Editorial Department of the Dicastery for Communicationwith this September consistory “the Pope wants all the attention of the following month to focus on the Synod.”
A consistory (ordinary or extraordinary) is a meeting held by the Pope with the assistance of Cardinals of the Church. In this case, it is an ordinary consistory to create new cardinals.
“Its provenance expresses the universality of the Church, which continues to announce the merciful love of God to all men on earth. The insertion of the new Cardinals in the diocese of Rome manifests the indissoluble link between the see of Peter and the particular Churches spread throughout the world”, expressed the Pontiff on Sunday.
To date, the College of Cardinals is made up of 222 members, of which 121 are electors, that is, they are empowered to vote in the conclave that would elect the successor to Pope Francis.
With the new cardinals announced by Pope Francis, the Church will have a total of 243 Cardinals: 139 voting in a future conclave and 104 non-voters.
Age limit to choose in a conclave
The criterion used to determine which cardinals can participate in a conclave is age, as established by Pope Saint Paul VI in 1970, when he set the limit at 80 years.
In this sense, “non-voters”, having exceeded this age, can take part in the previous meetings —called General Congregations—, but no longer in the conclave.
A unique case is that of Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciuwho at the age of 75 could be an elector, but renounced his cardinal rights in September 2020 due to accusations of embezzlement and abuse of office, for which he is currently facing trial.
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Before the announced creation of new Cardinals, of the 121 Cardinals with the right to vote, 81 were created by Pope Francis, 31 by Benedict XVI and the remaining 9 by Saint John Paul II.
The non-voters are 101, until now. Of this group, 29 were created by Pope Francis, 33 by Pope Benedict XVI, and 40 by John Paul II.
the angolan Alexandre do Nascimento He is the oldest Cardinal, at 98 years old, and the first from his country. He was created in 1983 by Saint John Paul II. The youngest is the Italian Giorgio Marengo, 49 years old, who will also participate in the Synod on Synodality in October this year.
The Cardinals who will turn 80 in 2023
For the remainder of 2023, seven Cardinals will turn 80 and lose the right to vote.
They are Giuseppe Versaldi (Italy), on July 30; Angelo Comastri (Italy), on September 17; Patrick D’Rozario (Bangladesh), on October 1; Leonardo Sandri (Italy), on November 18; Andrew Yaom Soo-jung (South Korea), on December 5; John Zerbo (Mali), on December 27; Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne (Peru), on December 28.
The future Cardinals of Latin America…
Of the 21 future Cardinals there are 3 from Argentina, 1 from Colombia and 1 from Venezuela. Among them stands out the name of the Argentine Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández, who will take office as Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in September.
Also present were Bishop Luis Rueda Aparicio, Archbishop of Bogotá (Colombia), 61 years old, and Bishop Diego Rafael Padrón Sánchez, Archbishop Emeritus of Cumaná (Venezuela).
The confessor of mercy
Lastly, the announcement of the purple to Fr. Luis Pascual Dri deserves a special mention, as he is a 96-year-old Franciscan friar who, since 2007, after his retirement, has been a confessor at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Pompeii, in Buenos Aires. .
This Capuchin, born in Federación (Argentina) on April 17, 1927, has been named by Pope Francis on more than one occasion as an example of mercy in several homilies and in some catechism of his general audiences.
Geographical distribution
In terms of geographic distribution, historically most Cardinals have come from Europe. However, in Francis’ pontificate the trend has been to decentralize and give more space to representatives of non-European countries. This has led to the fact that the Church currently has Cardinals from 91 nations, from the five continents.
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