Pope sees Cardinals as a threat to his seizure of power

Pope Francis has by no means attributed to the cardinals as figures of universal church leadership the importance that they gained over a thousand years ago and had also visibly expressed more recently since Pope Nicholas II's Papal election decree of 1059.  Cardinals were papal legates, great builders and patrons.  They often came from great noble families and it was from their formerly very manageable circle that the new popes emerged.  Cardinals bore a special co-responsibility for the overall governance of the Church.

No more hinges of the Church

“Pastor bonus", the constitution with which John Paul II updated the Curia in 1988, was based on the communio idea of the Second Vatican Council and on the historical growth of the Curia.  In the programmatic introduction to "Pastor bonus", the Polish Pope attributed to the cardinals a decisive role in the governance of the Church: since the turn of the millennium, Peter's successor had "increasingly availed himself of the collaboration of the cardinals" and finally, from the 14th century onwards, "dealt with all the affairs of the Church together with the cardinals assembled in the consistory".  Thus "Pastor bonus".  Even in the 20th century, the Cardinals were still something like the "cardines", the fulcrums" or "hinges" of the Church's leadership.

Only Pope Francis wanted to break with this thousand-year-old tradition, which Benedict XVI did not change after John Paul II.  In the Constitution, "Praedicate Evangelium", with which he gave the Roman Curia a new basic law on 19 March, the Cardinals are still mentioned. They are mentioned in the same breath as bishops, priests, religious and lay people when it comes to the staff of the Roman authorities but they no longer play a special role.  In the pre-amble to the Constitution, Francis takes as his starting point the mercy of Jesus' washing of the Apostles' feet and of the Good Samaritan, the communion of a Synodal Church that hears and the missionary conversion of the Church: The Curia too is to serve Evangelisation hence the title of the Constitution: "Preach the Gospel".

The Roman Curia is to serve as a bond between the Pope and the bishops or the episcopal conferences.  Every Christian is a missionary, so lay people also belong to the Curia and among them, of course, women.  However, any historical reference to the Curia is missing from the preamble.  What counts in Rome is the Pope alone.  It is only logical that Francis' reform of the Curia no longer knows any "congregations", which were assemblies of cardinals.  "Praedicate Evangelium" only knows dicasteries, in German authorities.  Francis has exorcised the Roman Curia of the crimson flair of the past thousand years.

Long expected

Consequently, the Pope has not held a meeting of cardinals since 2014, that is, an ordinary consistory in which he discusses issues of church governance with the Cardinals from all over the world.  Now it is that time again.  On Saturday, Francis will confer 21 cardinals' hats, 16 recipients of which will be eligible to participate in the Papal election.  The Mass with the new Cardinals, including the presentation of the cardinal's biretta, would normally have taken place on Sunday.  But that is when Francis is on a short visit to L’Aquila, where he is opening a Holy Year.  On Monday and Tuesday, he will then meet with the cardinals for the ordinary and non-public consistory before celebrating Mass with them early on Tuesday evening, when there will also be the cardinal's ring for the new bearers of the purple.

This consistory had been long awaited by many and not only Cardinals.  For the 83 Cardinals appointed by Francis as of Saturday evening largely do not know each other.  And even among the 38 Cardinals under the age of eighty still appointed by Benedict XVI and the eleven appointed by John Paul II, there are great unknowns in a coming Conclave.  But how can one elect a Pope if one only knows the candidates by name?

Exotic birds in purple

Moreover, Francis has remained true to his habit of making Cardinals from bishops from the fringes of the Church and passing over tradition-rich metropolitan bishoprics that were associated with the cardinalate dignity.  So it will be this coming Saturday: not the Archbishop of Los Angeles, José Gómez, who is considered rather conservative, will become a cardinal but the liberal Robert McElroy, Bishop in San Diego, not far away. Not the Archbishop in the Nigerian capital Abuja, Ignatius Kaigama, receives the purple, but Bishop Peter Okpaleke of Ekwulobia.

Once again, the cardinal's hat narrowly passes by Archbishop Mario Delpini of Milan and lands on the head of Bishop Oscar Cantoni in Como, a good 30 kilometres away.  Incidentally, the youngest Cardinal on Saturday will be the 48-year-old Italian missionary, Giorgio Marengo, who has been Apostolic Prefect in the Mongolian capital of Ulanbaatar since April 2020 and is responsible for 1,359 Catholics.

For him, what can be said for many "exotic birds" appointed by Francis to the College of Cardinals is true: they are completely unknown to the vast majority of Papal electors sitting in an upcoming conclave.  Curia people will also receive the Cardinal's trappings on Saturday.  For example, Englishman Arthur Roche, 72, Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and Lazzaro You Heung-sik, 71, from the focolare movement and Prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy.  As is the 77-year-old governor of Vatican City State, Spanish Legionary of Christ, Fernando Vergez Alzaga.  In the majority, however, are the bishops who come from distant parts of the world.  For the first time, besides Mongolia, Paraguay, Singapore and East Timor will receive a Cardinal.  The total number of Papal electors in the College of Cardinals will rise to 132 on Saturday, but then drop to the canonically determined number of 120 by September 2023 because of the age limit of 80.

Surprises possible

Francis wants to discuss the reform of the Curia with the old and new cardinals now gathered in Rome. In addition, in these days the Vatican is moving from the first phase of the two-year Synodal Process, which mainly consisted of answering the questionnaire sent out by the Vatican Synod Secretariat on Synodality lived in practice at the national level, to the continental phase, which is then to be followed by the final Synod of Bishops in Rome in October 2023.

And it is completely open whether Francis will not quite surprisingly pull another topic out of the bag for the consultations with the Cardinals: The speculations range from changing the regulation of the Conclave to the definitive regulation of future Papal resignations.  After all, Francis is making a short visit on Sunday to L’Aquila, where Celestine V is buried, the last Pope before Benedict XVI, who voluntarily stepped down from office in the distant year of 1294.  But Francis has now widely denied that he himself intends to step down any time soon, in several interviews and most recently on the flight back to Rome from Canada.

In the pre-conclave of 2013, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio had warned against a self-referential Church.  The "good" Church goes out on its own and proclaims the Gospel.  The "secular" Church lives in itself, from itself and for itself.  Perhaps he was referring to the sometimes Byzantine-like court that had formed around the Pope behind the "holy walls" and found in some Cardinals the centre of a clerical life with all its dark sides.

After the Revolution

Vatileaks, completely oversized flats, pulling of strings, power games and a lax handling of money were only a few aspects of this Curial apparatus to which Francis gave the cold shoulder from the start by avoiding the Apostolic Palace and taking a flat in the Vatican guesthouse, Santa Marta. Like a Jesuit general, Francis then acquired a staff of advisors as Pope, originally consisting of nine cardinals who, with the exception of the Secretary of State, did not come from the Curia.  With "Praedicate Evangelium", this interim state of limbo has actually come to an end.  The Roman College of Cardinals is no longer what it once was.  The Consistory of the coming days could provide information on how Francis might envisage the time after his quiet revolution.

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