Pope Francis’s recent naming of 21 new cardinals in early July is likely to be decisive in tilting the vote of the next papal conclave and keeping the papacy in the mold of Francis, according to reports. The National Catholic Reporter (July 21–August 3) notes that 18 of the 21 new cardinals are under the age of 80, making them eligible to vote in the papal enclave and bringing the total number of eligible electors to 137. Among the key appointments are the new head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez, the Vatican’s ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Christophe Pierre, and U.S.-born Archbishop Robert Prevost, who is responsible for the appointment of Catholic bishops worldwide. Vatican correspondent Christopher White reports that Fernandez’s appointment to the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) and to the rank of cardinal goes along with Francis’s conciliatory style; he had asked the archbishop, who is a fellow Argentine, to “steer the [DDF] in a new direction marked by the promotion of ways of evangelization and doing theology, rather than controlling theologians.” Also notable among the newly named cardinals who embrace Francis’s approach is Hong Kong Bishop Stephen Chow, a Jesuit, who has recently tried to bridge divides between China and Hong Kong Catholics.
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The Catholic newsletter The Pillar (July 11) notes that in comparison to 2012, the year before Francis’s election, the college of Cardinals in September will be “significantly less European and slightly less North American, while the representation of Asia and Africa has increased. Certainly, there seems to be a preferred Francis type of cardinal, and one of these preferences is to name men chosen from widely scattered and often overlooked regions of the world… One of the inevitable consequences of this is a drop in Italian and European representation and influence. How this shift could affect a future conclave is hard to predict — Though some Catholics, maybe even Francis, might see this unpredictability as a space for the Holy Spirit to be heard.” In his newsletter Rod Dreher’s Diary (July 11), the conservative journalist writes that the new appointments show that “Francis has further stacked the College with men who owe him and are presumably in his theological mold. He is working to institutionalize his progressive revolution.” He adds that the list of new cardinals was “idiosyncratic, typical of Francis, and once again ignored the [conservative] Archbishop of Los Angeles, one of the largest dioceses in the world. You might say that L.A. already has a cardinal, in the retired Roger Mahony. Well, a city having two cardinals—two active cardinals—didn’t stop Francis from naming the auxiliary bishop of Lisbon, Americo Aguiar, as a new cardinal, despite that fact that Lisbon’s archbishop is already one.”
