BY GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
Pope Benedict XVI named 23 new cardinals on Wednesday in a list that highlights the concerns and shifting demographics of the worldwide church.
Among the newly named are two Americans: Archbishop Daniel DiNardo, 58, of Galveston-Houston (the United States' 10th-largest archdiocese, with 1.5 million Catholics); and Archbishop John Foley, 71, who moved in July from a longtime Vatican post to head a lay religious community protecting Roman Catholic Church interests in Jerusalem.
Eighteen of the new cardinals are under age 80 and eligible to vote for the next pope; five others were named in recognition of their service to the church, including the patriarch of Baghdad, who has voiced concerns about endangered Catholics in Iraq.
The new cardinals will receive their red hats at the Vatican on Nov. 24. They include archbishops of Paris; Mumbai, India; Nairobi, Kenya; Barcelona and Valencia, Spain; Armagh, Ireland; Monterrey, Mexico; Dakar, Senegal; and Sao Paulo, Brazil.
The surprise of the day appeared to be the elevation of DiNardo, when many had expected Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., to be named a cardinal.
"It's no snub to Wuerl, who will surely be named next time," says the Rev. Thomas Reese, a priest and political scientist at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center in Washington.
"DiNardo will be only the second U.S. cardinal west of the Mississippi, so the pope is recognizing that the U.S. church has moved south and west in population, and it shows the growing importance of the Latino population," says Catholic historian Matthew Bunson.
"It's a gravitational shift away from the older Eastern dioceses."
Unlike the first batch of cardinals named by Benedict in 2006, "the pope is now selecting from people he appointed himself. ... They will more closely represent the kinds of cardinals he wants," Bunson says. "They have long-standing connections to Catholic education, to promotion of vocations. They're strong pastoral leaders and good theologians - back-to-basics Catholics like himself."
It's also a sign of shifting strength inside the Vatican: DiNardo was well known in Rome for his service in the Congregation for Bishops, says longtime Vatican watcher and National Catholic Reporter columnist John Allen.
Adding DiNardo and Foley boosts the number of U.S. cardinal electors to 13, giving the USA "radical over-representation" in the College of Cardinals, Allen says. "That's more cardinals than Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines, the world's three largest Catholic countries, all together."
The cap for electors is 120, although Benedict, like the last pope, has set that aside. Because of birthdays and deaths, the numbers fluctuate.
With the additions, there will be:
- 60 European electors including 21 ?Italians.
- 20 from North America, including four Mexicans and three Canadians.
- 17 from Central and South America, including four from Brazil.
- 13 from Asia; nine from Africa and two from the Pacific.
The non-voting U.S. cardinals include: retired archbishop of Philadelphia Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua; Cardinal William Baum, retired from the Curia, the Vatican bureaucracy that governs the church; Cardinal Avery Dulles, a noted theologian from New York, who already was in his 80s when named in 2001; and Edmund Szoka, former archbishop of Detroit who retired from the curia and turned 80 last month.
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(OPTIONAL BREAKOUT MATERIAL)
These U.S. cardinals could cast a vote for the next pontiff
After November 24, there will be 13 U.S. Cardinals eligible to vote for the next pope.
U.S. Cardinal Electors ... Position ... Date turning 80 ... year appointed
Adam Maida ... Archbishop of Detroit ... March 18, 2010 ... 1994
Theodore McCarrick ... Retired Archbishop of Washington DC ... July 07, 2010 ... 2001
William Keeler ... Archbishop of Baltimore ... March 4, 2011 ... 1994
Bernard Law ... Retired Archbishop of Boston ... Nov.4, 2011 ... 1985
Edward Egan ... Archbishop of New York ... April 2, 2012 ... 2001
James Stafford ... Roman Curia ... July 26, 2012 ... 1998
Justin Rigali ... Archbishop of Philadelphia ... April 19, 2015 ... 2003
John Foley ... Archbishop, grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem ... Nov. 11, 2015 ... 2007
Roger Mahony ... Archbishop of Los Angeles ... Feb. 27, 2016 ... 1991
William Levada ... Roman Curia and former Archbishop of San Francisco ... June 15, 2016 ... 2006
Francis George ... Archbishop of Chicago ... Jan. 16, 2017 ... 1998
Sean O'Malley ... Archbishop of Boston ... June 29, 2024 ... 2006
Daniel DiNardo ... Archbishop of Galveston-Houston ... May 23 2029 ... 2007
