Topping up – new cardinals announced for October

Pope Francis yesterday surprisingly announced that he will create 13 new cardinals on 5 October. Surprisingly, because the numbers do not really suggest the ned for a consistory at this time. There are currently 118 electors, cardinals who are active in the Roman Curia and who can vote in a conclave to elect a new Pope, with only 8 aging out between now and the end of 2020. It is clear, however, that Pope Francis prefers having too many rather than too few cardinals, and so habitually ignores the rule that there can only be a maximum of 120 electors (he’s not the only Pope to have done so, however: Pope St. John Paul II once expanded their number to a massive 135).

And, as ever, he also aims for a representative College of Cardinals. In this round, he selects prelates from Luxembourg and Morocco, countries which have never had a cardinal before, but also more traditional cardinalatial sees such as Bologna, Havana and Kinshasa.

And again we see the fallout of recent papal visits abroad. Hence cardinals from Lithuania (visited in September of 2018) and Morocco (March 2019).

After 5 October, there will be 215 cardinals, with 128 electors. Two days later, the latter number will drop again, as Cardinal-designate Ambongo Besungu’s predecessor in Kinshasa, Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, reaches the age of 80.

Below a list of the new cardinals:

• Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot (67, Spain)
  • President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and Prefect of the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims.
• José Tolentino Medonça (53, Portugal)
  • Librarian of the Vatican Apostolic Library and Archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives.
• Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo (69, Indonesia)
  • Metropolitan Archbishop of Jakarta, Military Ordinary of Indonesia and President of the Episcopal Conference of Indonesia
• Juan de la Caridad  Garciá Rodríguez (71, Cuba)
  • Metropolitan Archbishop of La Habana
• Fridolin Ambongo Besungu (59, Democratic Republic of the Congo)
  • Metropolitan Archbishop of Kinshasa and Vice-President of the National Episcopal Conference of Congo
• Jean-Claude Hollerich (60, Luxembourg) (pictured above)
  • Archbishop of Luxembourg and President of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community
• Alvaro Leonel Ramazzini Imeri (72, Guatemala)
  • Bishop of Huehuetenango
• Matteo Zuppi (63, Italy) (pictured at left giving a homily at the Church of the Frisians in Rome in 2015)
  • Metropolitan Archbishop of Bologna
• Cristóbal López Romero (67, Morocco)
  • Archbishop of Rabat
• Michael Czerny (73, Canada)
  • Undersecretary of the Migrant and Refugee Section of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development
• Michael Louis Fitzgerald (82, United Kingdom)
  • Apostolic Nuncio emeritus to Egypt and Delegate emeritus to the League of Arab States
• Sigitas Tamkevicius (80, Lithuania)
  • Metropolitan Archbishop emeritus of Kaunas
• Eugenio Dal Corso (80, Angola)
  • Bishop emeritus of Benguela

Of these, cardinals-designate Fitzgerald, Tamkevicius and Dal Corso, being 80 or older, are ineligible to participate in a conclave. Their selection must therefore be seen as a recognition for their work for the Church and the people in their pastoral care.

Cardinal-designate Czerny is also the first elector who is not yet a bishop upon his selection. Priests who are not (yet) bishops can be made cardinals, but this usually only happens for non-electors. As a Jesuit, Msgr. Czerny will probably request dispensation to not be ordained as a bishop before his creation as cardinal. This is par of the course for Jesuits who are not yet made bishops for other reasons (such as Pope Francis, who was ordained a bishop in 1992 to serve as auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires).

Looking ahead at a new year

Midway through the last month of the year, it is a good time to look ahead to the new year. 2018 will undoubtedly feature its share of Catholic news, developments and, not least, opinions in social media. Every year since the launch of this blog has had had more than a few surprises, so a look at the future can’t be anything but incomplete, but there are a few things which we know will happen.

The retirement and appointment of bishops is pretty easy to predict, as bishops are legally bound to offer their resignation when they reach the age of 75. Locally, there are currently three dioceses without a bishop: Roermond in the Netherlands, and Hildesheim and Würzburg in Germany. In 2018, two more will likely join these: in Fulda, Bishop Heinz Josef Algermissen (at right) will celebrate his 75th on 15 February, and in Namur, Bishop Remy Vancottem will do likewise on 25 July. A third likely diocese to fall vacant in Ghent. Bishop Luc van Looy will turn 77 on 28 September. Upon his 75th birthday, the diocese made it known that Pope Francis had requested the bishop stay on for two more years, and that extension is up this year.

Other predictable events include the 80th birthdays of cardinals, the age at which they cease their duties in the Roman Curia and are no longer able to participate in a conclave. In 2018, six cardinals will mark this milestone:

• Antonio Maria Cardinal Vegliò on 3 February
• Paolo Cardinal Romeo on 20 February
• Francesco Cardinal Coccopalmerio on 6 March
• Manuel Cardinal Monteiro de Castro on 29 March
• Pierre Cardinal Nguyễn Văn Nhơn on 1 April
• Angelo Cardinal Amato on 8 June

While all hold memberships in various dicasteries in the curia, two of these sit at the head of them: Cardinal Coccopalmerio is president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts and Cardinal Amato (at left) is the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Cardinal Nguyễn Văn Nhơn remains active as archbishop of Hanoi. All will undoubtedly retire upon their 80th birthday, opening up some interesting positions in the curia. Barring any deaths, the number of cardinal electors will stand at 114 by mid-2018. Possibly not low enough for a new consistory by itself, but considering the fact that a further 10 ill age out in 2019, Pope Francis may decide to be proactive and call a consistory in autumn for the creation of anywhere between 6 and 16 new cardinals.

Speaking about the pope, he will, despite the fact that he has no love for travelling, visit several countries in 2018. In January, he will once again return to South America, visiting Peru and Chile. Ireland is on the schedule in August, when the Holy Father will attend the World Meeting of Families taking place in Dublin (logo at right). Visits not yet confirmed are to the Baltic countries in September and to Romania in December. A visit to India also remains an option, but as Pope Francis has just wrapped a visit to India’s neighbouring countries of Myanmar and Bangladesh, it may not be at the top of the list.

In the latter part of the year, all eyes will be on the Synod of Bishops again, this while the reverberations of the last two assemblies of that body are still being felt. The October 2018 Fifteenth Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops while focus on “Young People, Faith and Vocational Discernment”. To this assembly, each bishops’ conference will elect one or more (depending on their size) delegates, while the Pope will also make a personal selection of delegates. One of these personal choices has already been made: Sérgio Cardinal Da Rocha, the archbishop of Brasília, was appointed as Relator General of next year’s assembly. He will outline the theme at the start of the assembly and summarise the delegates’ speeches so they can be condensed into concrete proposals.

Photo credit: [1] Bistum Fulda, [2] Fotos Presidencia El Salvador/Wikipedia

Achievement unlocked – “One of Us” breaks the 1 million mark

The European Citizen’s Initiative “One of Us“, which aims to collect 1 million signatures to block the financing of activities which require the destruction of human embryos, just reached its goal today.

With 1 million signatories from at least seven member states of the European Union, the Initiative organisers will now be heard by the European Commission and the European Parliament, before the Commission will formulate a response. The achieved goal is therefore not a guarantee that the EU will be taking steps to protect human life at all stages, but a chance for “One of Us” to be heard.

As part of the regulations for a European Citizen’s Initiative, a set number of signatures must be collected in every member state. This goal must be reached in seven states for the Initiative to be valid. “One of Us” reached that goal in Austria (almost 31,000 signatures), Germany (over 74,000), Spain (almost 62,000), France (almost 84,000), Hungary (almost 50,000), Italy (almost 360,000), Lithuania (over 9,000), the Netherlands (over 23,000), Poland (almost 160,000), Romania (almost 66,000) and Slovakia (almost 22,000). That’s 11 countries, while Portugal will most likely reach its goal in the next weeks.

 “One of Us” has until 1 November to collect signatures and has stated the desire to collect 1,500,000 in total.

Haven’t  signed yet? Do so here.

Francis’ first – bring out the pallia

Tomorrow we celebrate the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the Stone and the Apostle, and, as always, the Church invests the newly appointed metropolitan archbishops with the sign of their office and authority: the pallium. This year 34 archbishops have travelled to Rome to receive their white band of lamb’s wool, while a 35th, Vietnamese Archbishop Le Van Hong, will receive his at home.

In alphabetical order they are:

1. Archbishop Antonio Carlos Altieri, S.D.B., of Passo Fundo, Brazil
2. Archbishop George Antonysamy of Madras and Mylapore, India
3. Archbishop Rogelio Cabrera Lopez of Monterrey, Mexico
4. Archbishop Sérgio Eduardo Castriani, C.S.Sp., of Manaus, Brazil
5. Archbishop Murray Chatlain of Keewatin-Le Pas, Canada
6. Archbishop Peter Loy Chong of Suva, Fiji
7. Archbishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone of San Francisco, USA
8. Archbishop Alfonso Cortes Contreras of Leon, Mexico
9. Archbishop Anil Joseph Thomas Couto of Delhi, India
10. Archbishop Claudio Dalla Zuanna, S.C.I., of Beira, Mozambique
11. Archbishop Ramon Alfredo Dus of Resistencia, Argentina
12. Archbishop Joseph Effiong Ekuwem of Calabar, Nigeria
13. Archbishop Carlos Maria Franzini of Mendoza, Argentina
14. Archbishop Lorenzo Ghizzoni of Ravenna-Cervia, Italy
15. Archbishop Gintaras Linas Grusas of Vilnius, Lithuania
16. Archbishop Sergio Alfredo Gualberti Calandrina of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
17. Archbishop Duro Hranic of Dakovo-Osijek, Croatia
18. Archbishop Michael Owen Jackels of Dubuque, USA
19. Archbishop Marek Jedraszewski of Lodz, Poland
20. Archbishop Jesus Juarez Parraga, S.D.B., of Sucre, Bolivia
21. Archbishop Jozef Piotr Kupny of Wroclaw, Poland
22. Archbishop Francois Xavier Le Van Hong of Hue, Vietnam
23. Patriarch Manuel Jose Macario do Nascimento Clemente, patriarch of Lisbon, Portugal
24. Archbishop Prakash Mallavarapu of Visakhapatnam, India
25. Archbishop Fabio Martinez Castilla of Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico
26. Archbishop Dieudonne Nzapalainga, C.S.Sp., of Bangui, Central African Republic
27. Archbishop Giuseppe Petrocchi of L’Aquila, Italy
28. Archbishop Mario Aurelio Poli of Buenos Aires, Argentina
29. Archbishop Carlo Roberto Maria Redaelli of Gorizia, Italy
30. Archbishop Alexander King Sample of Portland in Oregon, USA
31. Archbishop Moacir Silva of Ribeirao Preto, Brazil
32. Archbishop Philip Tartaglia of Glasgow, Great Britain
33. Archbishop Joseph William Tobin, C.Ss.R., of Indianapolis, USA
34. Archbishop Rolando Joven Tria Tirona, O.C.D., of Caceres, Philippines
35. Archbishop John Wong Soo Kau of Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Last year, the order of the liturgy was changed somewhat to remove any suggestion that the imposition of the pallia is a sacrament, and that change remains in effect. For Pope Francis this first feast of Sts. Peter and Paul as Pope will see him meeting several of his erstwhile brothers from the Argentine bishops’ conference, including his own successor in Buenos Aires, one of his very first appointments as Pope, Archbishop Mario Poli.

The full texts of the liturgy, which starts at 9:30 tomorrow morning, can be found here.

A new bishop in the east

Görlitz amid the other German dioceses

The east of this blog’s area of interest, that is.

Tucked away in the triangle formed by Germany’s borders with Poland and the Czech Republic is an interesting remnant of a once powerful ecclesiastical jurisdiction – or one of the remnants, one should say. The Diocese of Görlitz was created in 1972 as an apostolic administration to conform with the post-war borders in east and central Europe. Before 1972, this was part of the great Archdiocese of Breslau, stretching across parts of modern Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic, and split in separate parts following the Allies’ divisions of the Third Reich.

Now one of the smallest German dioceses with a mere 30,000 Catholic faithful, Görlitz runs the risk of being something of a lost child in the Church of the west. But good things have a tendency to be noticed, as became clear in July 2010, when Görlitz’s bishop, Msgr. Konrad Zdarsa, was sent to Augsburg, where his predecessor, Bishop Mixa, had just left amid much rumours and confusion. Bishop Zdarsa had been occupying the see of Görlitz for only three years when he was reassigned, so evidently  he must have made good in the small diocese. But his departure did leave the good people of eastern Saxony and southern Brandenburg without a bishop.

Bishop-elect Wolfgang Ipolt

Now, almost exactly a year later, a clergyman from Erfurt is sent east  become a shepherd. Msgr. Wolfgang Ipolt is 57 and becomes the fourth bishop of Görlitz, with its 60-some priests, and 80-some religious. Bishop-elect Ipolt was until now the rector of the interdiocesan seminary in Erfurt, which also serves Berlin, Dresden-Meiβen, Magdeburg and Görlitz, as well as students from Lithuania, Poland and the Czech Republic. As rector of such a seminary, Msgr. Ipolt may be expected to have a similarly international outlook, especially eastward towards the great Catholic nations of Poland and Lithuania, but also to the fledgling Church communities in the former German Democratic Republic – communist East Germany. The new bishop, then, reflects the identity of the diocese: situated between past and present – the strong Catholic history of past Breslau and the future of the new dioceses in eastern Germany.

With this appointment, only Berlin remains vacant in Germany.