This Saturday the Consistory: numbers, records and curiosities of the “senate” of the Church

The Consistory of this 28th of November, the seventh summoned by Pope Francis, raises the number of attendance at the College of Cardinals to 229 (101 non-voters). News and data from an institution that is 900 years old.

Alessandro De Carolis, Silvonei José – Vatican News

For a few centuries it had been 30. Then Sixtus V in 1586 raised them to 70, but nothing to do with the breadth we know today, a group of people who also geographically represent the evangelicals “extreme ends of the earth”. The College of Cardinals in its current size and composition is a choice that matures gradually in the 20th century. It was John XXIII who first “violated” the historic limit of Sixtus V, so much so that the purples that at the end of the last Pontificate between the 19th and 20th centuries had fluctuated by an average of 60 members, at the death of Pope Roncalli there were 82 and among them there are unpublished somatic traits, with the first Filipino, Japanese, African cardinals.

“Global” College

A few years passed and Paul VI completed the job. He created 143 cardinals, further expanding the “latitude” of his origins (the first New Zealander, the first Malagasy, the first Sinhalese, etc.), determined the place of the Eastern Patriarchs in the College and, above all, established the threshold still valid today 80 years old to be entitled to vote in a possible Conclave. At the death of Pope Montini there were 129 cardinals, a number that is a prelude to a new change made by John Paul II. With Pope Wojtyla, the College of Cardinals has become a complete expression of the world and of the 231 cardinals from around seventy countries he created in nine Consistories (even 42 in the 2001 Consistory, a record for the Church), there are still 16 cardinal voters of the 65 present in the group, the oldest of whom is 96-year-old Jozef Tomko, raised in 1985.

Older, younger

The Pontificate of Benedict XVI also saw the entrance of 90 Cardinals in five Consistories into the College. Among those who obtained the hat of Pope Emeritus there are currently 39 voters and 30 non-voters, including the oldest of the entire group, the 96-year-old Frenchman Albert Vanhoye, who was created a cardinal in 2006. Pope Francis belongs to the creation of the youngest living cardinal, Dieudonné Nzapalainga – only 49 years old in 2016 at the time of publication – who, in the garb of Metropolitan Bangui, is also the first cardinal born in the Central African Republic.

Francis, cardinals and peripheries

As of November 28, Francisco will have chaired his seventh Consistory and created a total of 101 cardinals, 73 of whom are currently among those who have the right to vote in a possible Conclave. For the Pope of the “peripheries”, this Saturday’s convocation also shows the beginning and the return. The first case belongs to Brunei and Rwanda – countries that make their historic entrance to the College – the second case belongs to Malta, which for a short time was not represented, that is, since the death of Cardinal Prosper Grech in December 2019. Francis’ pontificate also includes other records.

Among others, that of cardinal headquarters in countries that have never had it (in addition to the aforementioned Central African Republic, Brunei and Rwanda, also Haiti, Dominica, Burma, Panama, Cape Verde, Tonga, Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Lesotho , Mali, Sweden, Laos, El Salvador, Luxembourg), the first African American cardinal (Washington Metropolitan Wilton Gregory), the first born after the Council (Nzapalainga), the first convert to Catholicism since the times of Jean-Marie Lustiger (Bishop of Stockholm Anders Arborelius, Lutheran by birth).

Curiosity

Some names are linked to some statistical curiosities. For example, the Thai Michael Michai Kitbunchu, 91, emeritus from Bangkok, has been part of the College of Cardinals for the longest time (37 years). A record of duration shared with the New Zealander Thomas Stafford Williams, 90 years old, ordinary military emeritus of his country. Both received the cap of Pope Wojtyla in 1983.

Another fact is related to the presence of religious families in the current College: there are 26, for a total of 51 cardinals (29 voters) who wear the habit of their Institute in purple. The most represented are the Salesians (9), followed by the Jesuits (7). It should be noted that with Father Mauro Gambetti, guardian of the Sacred Convent of Assisi, the Order of Franciscans Conventuals also becomes part of the group of cardinals.

Geography too, as has been said, especially at the will of Pope Francis, continues to be redesigned, expanding the map of the College, which now reaches 90 countries represented, from Albania to Vietnam, with the most numerous group of Italian cardinals (47) , followed by the United States (15) and Spain (14). From the point of view of the continents, Europe counts, among voters and non-voters, 106 cardinals, Africa 30, Asia 27. North America counts 26, South America 25, Central America 9 and finally Oceania 6. Brazil has 9 cardinals, 4 voters and 5 non-voters: AGNELO Geraldo Majella; ASSIS Raymundo DAMASCENO; AVIZ João BRAZ de; of ROCHA Sérgio; FALCÃO FREIRE José; HUMMES Cláudio; SCHEID Eusébio Oscar; SCHERER Odilo Pedro; TEMPESTA Orani João.

Portugal has 5, three of whom are voters.

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