POPE EXPECTED TO ANNOUNCE NEW CARDINALS BY FEBRUARY 2012

In the year to come, "God willing," the fourth consistory of Benedict XVI is scheduled to take place, with the creation of new cardinals. And thanks to these new additions, the number of voting cardinals appointed by Ratzinger will for the first time exceed that of Wojtyla in the college of papal electors.

The most probable date of the new consistory is the weekend before February 22, the liturgical feast of the Chair of Saint Peter: a feast traditionally associated with consistories, but not usable next year, because it coincides with Ash Wednesday.

In all three previous consistories of Benedict XVI – held on March 24, 2006, November 24, 2007, and November 20, 2010 – the official announcement was made about a month in advance, and always at the end of a Wednesday general audience: respectively on February 22, October 17, and October 20 of those years. If this temporal rhythm is kept this time as well, it can be hypothesized that the names of the new cardinals to be created on February 19 could be made known at the end of the audience on Wednesday, January 18.

So far, Benedict XVI has created 62 cardinals, 12 of whom were already over the age of eighty when they were promoted. 57 of them are still alive, and 46 of them have the right to vote, becoming 45 next January 13, when the Chinese Joseph Zen will pass the age that no longer permits a cardinal to participate in a conclave.

On the basis of norms established by Paul VI in 1973 and confirmed by John Paul II, the maximum number of cardinal electors – those who, in keeping with the 1970 motu proprio "Ingravescentem aetatem," are under the age of eighty and therefore have the right to participate in an eventual conclave – is fixed at 120.

There are currently 192 cardinals. Those under the age of eighty amount to 109, dropping to 107 on February 19 (in addition to Zen, in fact, the Portuguese José Saraiva Martins will turn 80 on January 6. This means that at the next consistory, there will be at least 13 new cardinals, but more likely 15 or more, considering that in the following months of 2012 another 11 cardinals will turn eighty.

So far Benedict XVI has exceeded the ceiling of 120 by only one (this happened in 2007 and 2010). So this time the extra appointments could be slightly more numerous, but still well below those had with John Paul II, when – after the consistories of 2001 and 2003 – the record number of 135 cardinal electors was reached.

Lists of new cardinals have already begun to circulate in the Apostolic Palace, but the definitive one will be established, as always, only a very few days before the announcement.

In the consistory of 2010, half of the posts for cardinals went to directors of the curia and of other Roman ecclesiastical offices that are intended to be occupied by a cardinal. For 2012, the appointments expected concern the Italians Fernando Filoni (prefect of Propaganda Fide), Domenico Calcagno (president of APSA), Giuseppe Versaldi (president of the prefecture of economic affairs of the Holy See) and Giuseppe Bertello (president of the governorate of Vatican City-State), the Brazilian Joao Braz de Aviz (prefect of the congregation for religious), the American Edwin F. O'Brien (pro-grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher) and the Spanish Santos Abril y Castello (archpriest of the papal basilica of Saint Mary Major). To these could be added Francesco Coccopalmerio (president of the pontifical council for legislative texts), and/or Rino Fisichella (president of the newly created council for promoting new evangelization).

As for the dioceses traditionally led by a cardinal, it seems that the practice will be respected that calls for not creating a new one where an emeritus is present who has not yet turned eighty. An exception, if there is one, could be made for Timothy Dolan in New York, and for the Dominican Dominik Duka in Prague, the cardinals emeritus of which will turn eighty, respectively, on April 2 and May 17.

The list should include the new archbishops of Berlin (Rainer Maria Woelki), Toronto (Thomas C. Collins), and Utrecht (Willem J. Eijk), the bishop of Hong Kong (John Tong), as well as the new Maronite patriarch Bechara Rai in Lebanon and the new major archbishop of the Syro-Malabars in India, George Alencherry.

A more complex question is that of the episcopal sees in which the cardinal emeritus has not gone into retirement, but has been called to another post in the Roman curia. This is the case of Florence, Toledo, and Quebec, whose "archbishops emeritus" (called this in the Annuario Pontificio) are now, respectively, president of the pontifical council for the family (Ennio Antonelli), prefect of the congregation of divine worship (Antonio Cañizares) and prefect of the dicastery for bishops (Marc Ouellet). In 2010, the practice of excluding the presence of two voting cardinals in a single see was applied rigorously in such cases as well. For 2012, no definitive decision has been made yet, although the idea of confirming this rigid application seems to be prevailing.

Another round will have to be awaited by the archbishops of Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Westminster, Mechelen-Brussels, Turin, Seville, Rio de Janeiro, Sâo Salvador da Bahia, Santiago, Chile, Bogotà, Quito, Giakarta, Manila.

Beyond the preselected names, the fact remains that in 2012 – with the new consistory and with the thirteen cardinals who will pass the age of eighty, only two of whom were created during the current pontificate (Zen and the Filipino Gaudencio Rosales) – the college of papal electors will for the first time be composed of a majority of cardinals created by Benedict XVI.

Of course, on February 19 pope Ratzinger could create one or more cardinals "ad honorem," who have already passed the age of eighty.

Source: http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1350118?eng=y