Pope Francis won’t be convening the traditional pre-consistory meeting before creating five new cardinals tomorrow. The Vatican says the consistory will have a courtesy meeting today and Mass will be celebrated tomorrow, which is the Solemnity of the Saints Apostles Peter and Paul. At this time Francis will impose the Pallia on the new cardinals. Read more
The ability, or even tendency, to make stupid remarks is not, at least officially, a prerequisite for being made a curial cardinal. But neither does it seem to hurt the odds of one’s wearing a red biretta around Rome. In 2011, a Spanish bishop claimed that Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, then head of the Pontifical Council Read more
The former secretary to St John XXIII and the oldest member of the College of Cardinals died on May 26 at the age of 100. Italian Cardinal Loris Capovilla, who served St John XXIII before and after he became pope, died in Bergamo, near Milan. Cardinal Capovilla was born in Pontelongo, Italy, in 1915, and Read more
Cardinal Walter Kasper’s proposals to allow Communion for remarried divorcees got a frosty reception from many of his fellow cardinals at a recent meeting That is according to an Italian journalist writing about the February consistory at the Vatican. In an article for the Turin daily, La Stampa, on March 24, Marco Tosatti wrote that Read more
This column probably ought to carry a warning label: “The following piece of writing contains an apples-and-oranges comparison that may be hazardous to your intellectual health.” I’m going to compare two fights among senior churchmen, but the purpose is not to suggest they’re identical. Rather, it’s to understand what makes them different. The first term Read more
US-dominated globalization is not compatible with cultures of the south. Among the 22 new cardinals receiving a biretta on February 18 from Pope Benedict XVI, 10 hold positions in the Roman Curia. Italians comprise seven of the 22, making them the largest group. Only three are from outside Europe or North America. So this consistory Read more