By the time you read this (if you’re in America), B16 should have given the Church 15 new cardinals.
Today is the day of the consistory that he convoked for the creation of the new cardinals that were announced last month.
Many folks will undoubtedly be curious about just what happens at a consistory, so it’s fortunate that Zenit has
THIS STORY DEALING WITH THE WORKINGS OF A CONSISTORY.
Among other things, the new cardinals are required to swear the following oath:
"I [name and surname], Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, promise and swear to be faithful henceforth and forever, while I live, to Christ and his Gospel, being constantly obedient to the Holy Roman Apostolic Church, to Blessed Peter in the person of the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI, and of his canonically elected Successors; to maintain communion with the Catholic Church always, in word and deed; not to reveal to any one what is confided to me in secret, nor to divulge what may bring harm or dishonor to Holy Church; to carry out with great diligence and faithfulness those tasks to which I am called by my service to the Church, in accord with the norms of the law. So help me Almighty God."
Then each new cardinal will approach the Pope and kneel before him to receive the red hat and be assigned a title or deaconry. The Pope will say, in part:
"It is red as a sign of the dignity of the office of a cardinal, signifying that you are ready to act with fortitude, even to the point of spilling your blood for the increase of the Christian faith, for peace and harmony among the people of God, for freedom and the spread of the Holy Roman Catholic Church."
MORE INFO FROM AMERICAN PAPIST.
Wait, so do they get a copy of Linux or not?
Heh! I had the same thought when I read the title of this post!
Please do not excoriate me, O Commenters…Commentators…but I could *swear* I’d read something somewhere in a comment box saying that, in theory, a woman could be made a cardinal. Was it all a hallucination?
It wouldn’t matter except for the fact that I took leave of my senses in a moment of frustration with my class full of ninth-grade proponents of women’s ordination and said, “you know, I’m not sure about this, but I could swear I had read that a woman could be made a cardinal as an honorary title.” God help me, I have no idea why I told them that.
This is from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
The person nominated must possess the qualifications of a bishop (Council of Trent, Sess. XXIV, De ref., c. i). He must, therefore, be at least thirty years of age. However, for the cardinal-deacons it suffices to have entered on the twenty-second year; but the new cardinal-deacon must receive deacon’s orders within a year, otherwise he loses both passive and active vote (Postquam verus, § 6).
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03333b.htm
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Thanks, Inocencio (and sorry, Jimmy, for the hijack). I had read those qualifications before. Still, I knew I’d read this speculation somewhere, but it was at my other Favorite Apologetics-Type Blog – Mark Shea.
http://www.markshea.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_markshea_archive.html (scroll down)
Anyway – hijack over.
How disrespectful of you Jimmy to address the consistory as a “Red Hat Give Away”!!!!..Its the kind of remark a prostestant might maake and belittle the seriousness of the occasion. So sad you look down on this.
ATP: I don’t want to rain on Inocenio’s as-usual intelligent post, but he is citing Trent. Note: Trent. There were plenty of cardinals who were NOT bishops in Church history (there are some RIGHT NOW), and a fair number who weren’t even priests. It’s a church office, and the Church can set qualfications anyway she wants. No women yet. But, as a friend of mine once quipped, if we do have female cardinals, their title would be “Your Feminence.”
Mark: lighten up Bro. no one reads Jimmy that way. no one.
Ed & alia & cetera:
I was shocked the first time a saw a Cardinal in person. SO RED! It’s not merely red; it leans into orange. (Is that what they call “scarlet”?)
Women dressed in Cardinal Red … well … shades of the Whore of Babylon! What would the separated brethren and brethrenesses think?
Besides, you know that no self-respecting woman would want to be addressed by the WEIGHTY honorifc of “Your EMINENCE.”
–
Ok…”a Red Hat Give Away”?..I ca see some humor in it. But we face so much anticatholicism from those “Seperated Bretheren”. It appears to be mocking. Even the City Of San Francisco has condemned Our faith in a Resolution for standing against Gay adoption in the most hideous terms. Sometimes what seems funny loses its humor. Sorry Jimmy,I am sorry, I will try to lighten up Bro. I guess I need a harder penance..lol
Ed,
Does this still apply to Cardinals?
“John XXIII with the Motu Proprio Cum gravissima of 15 April 1962, established that henceforth all Cardinals were to be bishops.”
and since canon law says:
Can. 350 §1. The College of Cardinals is divided into three orders: the episcopal order, to which belong those Cardinals to whom the Roman Pontiff assigns the title of a suburbicarian Church, and eastern-rite Patriarchs who are made members of the College of Cardinals; the presbyteral order, and the diaconal order.(emphasis added)
I thought I would ask a canon lawyer, does that reserve the office to only men?
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/documentazione/documents/cardinali_documentazione/cardinali_documentazione_generale_en.html
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Inocencio: No, it does not still apply, and the three orders you cite are honorifics now; all cardinals are bishops (most) or priests (eg, Dulles).
btw: J23’s directive is one of the examples i cite that, in many ways, J23 was QUITE conservative….fwiw.