Pope creates 31 cardinals to shape his succession

Writing for the UK's Times today, Rome correspondent Richard Owen says that:

"THE Pope is to create 31 cardinals next month in what appears to be an increasingly urgent drive to complete the unfinished business of his pontificate and shape the next one......

The Pope’s list was published almost four months ahead of schedule and the consistory to install the new cardinals adds to an already crowded October agenda.......

There is speculation that the next conclave will elect a Third World Pope .......

The Pope is keeping the name of one of the new cardinals secret. This may mean he is a prelate in a country where Catholicism is suppressed, or it could be Bishop Stanislao Dziwisz, the Pope’s devoted Polish secretary. Some Vatican officials are said to have objected that a red hat was a step too far."

More: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-834689,00.html

NB: hard to assess the impact of this story nationlly as 95% of Italy was incommunicado yesterday with a massive power cut - no co-incidence!....................................


Much speculation remains on whether the the Opus Dei demand for the next new Pope to be Chinese will be met - perhaps this is the 'secret nomination' that Owen alludes to......

Now wouldn't Dubya love that??????????????????????

World News

September 29, 2003

Pope creates 31 cardinals to shape his succession
From Richard Owen in Rome


THE Pope is to create 31 cardinals next month in what appears to be an increasingly urgent drive to complete the unfinished business of his pontificate and shape the next one.
They include Keith Patrick O’Brien, who has been Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh since 1985. An outspoken liberal in public and private, Archbishop O’Brien is a rare moderate on a largely conservative list.

He said last night that he had been dumbfounded when he was told on Friday: he thought the Papal Nuncio was calling to talk about two new bishops for Scotland. Now his main priority was to get lay people more involved in the Church.

Archbishop O’Brien had been considered a less likely choice than Mario Conti, the more conservative Archbishop of Glasgow, who in the event was passed over.

Sean O’Malley, the respected Capuchin friar who replaced Cardinal Bernard Law as Archbishop of Boston after paedophilia scandals in America, was also overlooked in favour of the arch-Conservative Justin Rigali, Archbishop of Philadelphia.

A paedophile investigation did not, however, prevent the Archbishop of Sydney making the list. George Pell stood down last year while allegations that he had sexually molested a boy of 12 in the Sixties were investigated. The charges were dropped.

The Pope’s list was published almost four months ahead of schedule and the consistory to install the new cardinals adds to an already crowded October agenda. That includes the first visit to Rome by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, on Friday; a mass gathering of existing cardinals on October 16 to mark the 25th anniversary of the Pope’s election; and the beatification of Mother Teresa of Calcutta on October 19.

The consistory two days later will be the ninth of the Pope’s reign; the last was in February 2001, when 44 cardinals were appointed.

The new names bring the conclave of cardinals aged under 80 who will elect the next Pope from 109 to 135. The optimum number is 120. However, a number of existing cardinals are about to turn 80, suggesting that the Pope has allowed for “natural wastage”. The appointments also throw open the race for the succession, since several of the new cardinals can be added to the long list of contenders.

Seven of the new cardinals hold top jobs in the Curia, the Vatican hierarchy, and 19 are archbishops in major dioceses.

Three of those are Italian — from Florence, Genoa and Venice — and all three are considered papabile. Other archbishops come from places where the Church is under pressure such as Sudan and Vietnam. The inclusion of the Archbishop of Lagos, Anthony Olubunmi Okogie, gives Nigeria a second cardinal in addition to Francis Arinze, the leading candidate to be the first black Pope.

There is speculation that the next conclave will elect a Third World Pope who could tackle the North-South divide and global ills such as poverty and terrorism in the same way that the election of John Paul II in 1978 transformed the East-West conflict. On the other hand, the latest nominations bring the number of Italian cardinals up to 23.

The Pope is keeping the name of one of the new cardinals secret. This may mean he is a prelate in a country where Catholicism is suppressed, or it could be Bishop Stanislao Dziwisz, the Pope’s devoted Polish secretary. Some Vatican officials are said to have objected that a red hat was a step too far.

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rfu, moderator

Pope appoints Cardinals.
Cardinals choose new Pope.

President appoints Supreme Court Justices.
Supreme Court Justices choose new President.

...what a load of shit

No puff of smoke, no aura of serious deliberation, just 'we want the Republican, so what excuse can we give that would let the Republican win'...
We even get 'we better intervene now, because if we have to intervene after they count the votes and Gore wins, it will look even worse!'

An outspoken liberal bishop and a Catholic gay rights group yesterday criticized the appointment of Sydney's conservative archbishop as a new cardinal.

Archbishop George Pell, 62, was among 31 new cardinals created Sunday by Pope John Paul II.

"I think for him it means it's a great personal honor and certainly I wouldn't want to be a party pooper and try and play that down," Canberra auxiliary Bishop Pat Power told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

http://www.etaiwannews.com/Asia/2003/09/30/1064887020.htm