Pope John Paul II, who is in declining health, yesterday announced 31 new cardinals to join the ranks of those who will eventually choose his successor.
In what many believe will be the last time the 83-year-old pontiff will use his powers to influence the arcane selection ritual that will follow his death, he appointed the second largest number of ”princes of the church” in history.
The move comes amid continuing speculation about the pontiff’s health.
He celebrates 25 years in office in less than three weeks’ time, and Italian newspapers have published reports, uncontradicted by church officials, that he is suffering from intestinal cancer in addition to the Parkinson’s disease which has afflicted him for more than a decade. Last month on a tour of Slovakia the pope appeared to be failing on occasions and last week an audience in Rome was cancelled.
The new cardinals are to be formally presented with their red hats next month, rather than waiting until February when the next meeting of cardinals was expected. The closeness of the date, described by Vatican officials as opportune, is likely only to increase speculation about Pope John Paul II’s longevity.
Yesterday, however, he was able to read out the list of new cardinals from his study window high in the Vatican when he addressed pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square, his words amplified with the aid of a generator supplied by Italian state broadcaster RAI because of nationwide power cuts.
The pope read out 30 names, retaining one in pectore — close to his heart, in secret — presumably because of concerns for the candidate’s safety if named.
The list included Keith Michael Patrick O’Brien, the archbishop of Edinburgh, replacing the last Scotsman on the list, the late Cardinal Thomas Winning, who died two years ago. There were also six Italians, three Frenchmen and a clutch of archbishops from the third world. Seven of the new cardinals are senior priestly bureaucrats in the Vatican.
Only one new American cardinal was named, probably in recognition of the pope’s displeasure at the paedophile scandal that has rocked the priesthood in the US, which John Paul II sees as a sign of western decadence rather than as an offshoot of a worldwide recruitment and discipli nary problem. The disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston remains a cardinal and will be eligible to vote in the next papal election.
Despite his frailty, the pope has a busy month ahead. Next Saturday he is due to meet Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for the first time, and also Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the leader of the Catholic church in England and Wales. Following the anniversary of his accession on October 16, the pope is intending to beatify Mother Teresa, the first step on the way to her canonisation as a saint.
Yesterday’s announcement was the ninth time the pope has named new cardinals during his reign, though the list was not as sizeable as in January 2001, when 44 were named.
He has now appointed 226 cardinals — members, it is said, of the most exclusive club in the world — many more than all his predecessors. By comparison, Paul VI, pope from 1963 to 1978, created 26.
The appointments are in the sole personal gift of the pope and until the 16th century some were not averse to appointing relatives and even children. Cardinals these days, however, must be ”outstanding in doctrine, virtue, piety and prudence in practical matters”.
The latest appointments will bring the number of cardinals leading the one billion-strong worldwide church to 195, of whom 135 are thought to be under the age of 80 and thus eligible to vote in the conclave which will choose the pope’s successor.
After the pope dies, an event confirmed when a senior member of staff strikes him on the forehead with a silver hammer and calls his baptismal name to make sure he is not just asleep, the cardinals will gather within a fortnight in the Vatican to deliberate in great secrecy on the choice of his successor.
Vatican observers believe that John Paul II, as much as any of his predecessors, has been concerned to shape the character of the group which chooses the 265th pontiff, stretching back in a direct line to St Peter.
Conclaves, so called because cardinals are locked in, incommunicado in the Sistine Chapel, for as long as it takes them to deliberate and vote, are traditionally highly political affairs. At one time the cardinals had to sleep where they could find space but recently a hotel-like accommodation block with 130 rooms has been built in the nearby St Martha’s hospice for the cardinals’ use.
A two-thirds majority is required and in former times elections could take weeks – 50 days in 1830 – though they have tended to be much shorter recently, before a column of white smoke signifying an election emerged from the Vatican chimney. – Guardian Unlimited Â