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.
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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.
Yesterday, the Holy Father appointed Father Borys Gudziak, 51, as the new apostolic exarch of France for the Ukrainian Greek Catholics. He will be the chief shepherd of the small community of this church’s faithful living in diaspora in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
Cláudio Hummes, the prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, has written a letter to all the priests on the occasion of the upcoming closing of the Year of the Priest, this summer in Rome. He repeats the pope’s invitation to all priests to come to Rome for that occasion, but Cardinal Hummes adds that a large presence of priests in St. Peter’s Square will also be a major sign of solidarity with the pope.
In Caelo et in Terra 