Eight Takeaways From the Pope’s Latest Selection of Cardinals
National Catholic Register, 11 July 2023
While some of the appointments were expected there were also some surprises, as has been customary during his papacy.
The next consistory for the creation of new cardinals has the typical flourishes of Pope Francis. The Holy Father chose three nuncios, reflecting the high priority he gives to the diplomatic establishment, elevated an auxiliary bishop, rewarded the return of Italian control in the Holy Land, comforted a bishop challenged by his people, promoted the traditional curial officials, and passed over various prominent dioceses.
Here are eight takeaways from the Holy Father’s choice of new cardinals.
No Hat for Nicaragua’s John Fisher
When King Henry VIII, well into his tyrannical phase, locked the learned and holy Bishop John Fisher of Rochester into the Tower of London, the pope of the time, Paul III, was deeply grieved. He named Fisher a cardinal in May 1935, hoping thereby to ameliorate his treatment. Henry was enraged and said that there was no need to send the red hat to London; he would send the head to Rome instead. He tried Fisher on June 17, 1535, and beheaded him five days later.
Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, has been imprisoned in Managua’s most notorious jail, the Ortega regime’s version of the Tower. He has been “convicted” of treason and sentenced to 26 years in prison. He was offered exile in the United States, but refused to leave the country without first meeting his brother bishops and priests.
A red hat for Bishop Alvarez would have been the most dramatic creation of a cardinal since that of Cardinal Fisher himself, and a dramatic demonstration of the Holy Father’s solidarity with persecuted Christians worldwide. Would it have provoked worse treatment for Bishop Alvarez, as it did for St. John Fisher? Perhaps, which may be why Pope Francis didn’t do it.
The Holy Father did have another option, to announce that he would create a cardinal “in pectore,” meaning that the name is kept secret, or “in (the pope’s) heart.” St. John Paul II did it three times, including with the persecuted bishop of Shanghai, Cardinal Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei. An “in pectore” appointment would not have put Bishop Alvarez in the direct line of fire, but many people would have suspected he was the secret cardinal, and been comforted by that.
Archbishop Shevchuk Snubbed, Again
Painfully, after 18 months of professing his closeness to the “martyred” Ukrainian people, Pope Francis passed over for the second time during the war the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk. Pope Francis, unlike dozens of world leaders, has not visited Kyiv, and has now declined for the second time even to send the red hat there as a sign of wartime solidarity, as Pope St. John Paul II did in 1994 with the archbishop of Sarajevo. Given that the head of the Ukrainian Catholics — the largest of the Eastern Churches in communion with Rome — is usually a cardinal will make the passing over of Patriarch Sviatoslav for the ninth consecutive consistory particularly painful in Kyiv and the global Ukrainian diaspora. On the other hand, the exclusion of Archbishop Shevchuk will be noted and welcomed in the Kremlin.
Securing the Legacy
This consistory, coming on quick on the heels of the appointment of Archbishop Victor Fernández as new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, was described by veteran Vatican commentators “as more part of Pope Francis’ legacy than any of the other nine consistories the Pope has held during his pontificate,” and the “consistory of a Pope in a hurry.” Indeed, the consistory was not strictly necessary, as the number of electors is more or less at 120, the nominal limit set out by St. Paul VI. (Both John Paul II and Francis went over the limit from time to time.)
Archbishop Fernández was named a cardinal as is customary, as were two other prefects of Roman dicasteries. That was to be expected. There were though some surprises, also customary under Pope Francis.
Italian in the Holy Land
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem is a most unusual post. While the bishop of Latin Catholics in Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Cyprus, he has usually been an Italian prelate. Despite Jerusalem’s status as the Mother Church of Christianity, Catholics in Jerusalem are a minority amid the majority of Orthodox Christians.
For complicated reasons, the patriarch has not been made a cardinal in hundreds of years. When the first native patriarch was appointed in 1987, the Palestinian Michel Sabbah, there were constant pleas that he be made a cardinal. He wasn’t, and neither was his successor, Fouad Twal of Jordan. In 2016, Pope Francis returned the patriarchate to Italian hands in Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the former head of the Franciscan “Custody” in the Holy Land. Patriarch Pizzaballa is now named a cardinal.
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