Just under the horizon – a look at the College before Francis’ first red hats

It would seem clear that one of these days (perhaps during tomorrow’s Angelus or Wednesday’s general audience) Pope Francis will announce who he intends to make cardinals in the consistory of 22 February. How many and who is anyone’s guess, but perhaps this is reason to take a look at how the College of Cardinals will change in 2014.

In order to max out the College at 120 electors, the Holy Father may appoint as many as 14 new cardinals or he may choose to appoint even more, as the upper limit established by Pope Paul VI is a flexible one (Pope John Paul II once made it as large as 135). The number of 14 is established by the fact that on the eve of the consistory there will be 106 electors. On 1 January, Raúl Cardinal Vela Chiriboga, emeritus Archbishop of Quito, turned 80. Below is the list of cardinals who will do likewise in 2014.

• 30 January: Giovanni Cardinal Battista Re, most senior elector in precedence, Prefect emeritus of the Congregation of Bishops
• 5 March: Jean-Baptiste Cardinal Pham Minh Man, Archbishop of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
• 14 March: Dionigi Cardinal Tettamanzi, Archbishop emeritus of Milan
• 28 May: Francesco Cardinal Monterisi, Archpriest emeritus of the Basilica of St. Paul-Outside-the-Walls
• 8 August: Cláudio Cardinal Hummes, Prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Clergy and Archbishop emeritus of São Paulo, Brazil
• 23 August: Carlos Cardinal Amigo Vallejo, Archbishop emeritus of Sevilla, Spain
• 1 September: Paolo Cardinal Sardi, Patron of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta
• 5 September: Paul Josef Cardinal Cordes, President emeritus of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”
• 23 September: Franc Cardinal Rode, Prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and for Societies of Apostolic Life and Archbishop emeritus of Ljubljana, Slovenia
• 2 December: Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, Camerlengo of the Apostolic Chamber and retired Secretary of State
• 20 December: Julius Riyadi Cardinal Darmaatmadja, Archbishop emeritus of Jakarta, Indonesia

That is a total of 11 cardinals who will age out of the group of electors, which may mean, depending on how many new cardinals will be created in February, a next consistory could take place in the spring or summer of 2015. Of these eleven, seven were created by Pope John Paul II and the remaining four by Pope Benedict XVI.

Saint of the year

So who’s your saint for the new year?

Blogger Jennifer Fulwiler’s Saints Name Generator has been quite popular in recent weeks. It is an easy tool to select a specific saint for basically any period of time, project or intention you’d care to mention. It is somewhat random, of course, by its very nature, but choosing a saint to ask to intercede for you is never a bad idea. This choice is not made effective by the tool, but by the prayer, but ours and theirs.

The saint that was selected for me is Saint Raymond of Peñafort. In an almost eerie coincidence (or is it) his feast is in three days time. And in another example of debatable coincidence, I have written about this saint in the very early days of my blog. At that time I was still trying to find this blog’s focus, and I tried for a while to write weekly blog posts about a specific saint whose feast day fell in that week. For the first week of January, I chose… Saint Raymond of Peñafort.

SQPN’s Saints Page has the following information on him:

“Born to the Aragonian nobility. Educated at the cathedral school in Barcelona, Spain. Philosophy teacher around age 20. Priest. Graduated law school in Bologna, Italy. Joined the Dominicans in 1218. Summoned to Rome, Italy in 1230 by Pope Gregory IX. Assigned to collect all official letters of the popes since 1150. Raymond gathered and published five volumes, and helped write Church law.

Chosen master general of the Dominicans in 1238. Reviewed the Order‘s Rule, made sure everything was legally correct, then resigned his position in 1240 to dedicate himself to parish work. He was offered and archbishopric, but he declined, instead returning to Spain and the parish work he loved. His compassion helped many people return to God through Reconciliation.

During his years in Rome, Raymond heard of the difficulties missionaries faced trying to reach non-Christians of Northern Africa and Spain. Raymond started a school to teach the language and culture of the people to be evangelized. With Saint Thomas Aquinas, he wrote a booklet to explain the truths of faith in a way that non-believers could understand. His great influence on Church law led to his patronage of lawyers.”

A writer, philosopher, lawyer, teacher, evangeliser, and communicator. There are less suitable patron saints to think of for a Catholic blogger.