Feature Article

Benedict?s European gambit

More than half the recipients of red hats next month are from Europe, representing the Pope's concern with the ‘old' continent. And most of the new cardinals are young enough to carry Benedict's torch even if a conclave is not necessary for 15 years

The College of Cardinals is one of the most exclusive men's clubs on earth. And a new consistory usually tells us as much about a pope and his vision for the Church as it does about the men he has chosen for this elite group. Pope Benedict XVI's recent choice of 23 new cardinals, which he will "create" next month at an ornate ceremony at the Vatican, is the latest sign of his efforts to shore up a traditional, Eurocentric vision of Catholic theology and ecclesiology that has been waning since the Second Vatican Council.

The most important of the "Class of 2007" are the 18 men under the age of 80, because they will join the College of Cardinals that will elect the next Bishop of Rome when the time arises. One could say that the only real reason that cardinals exist is to vote in a conclave. But even for those beyond the voting age there is a prestige - and influence - that goes with wearing the red hat.

The Pope might want to give prominence and public recognition to a theologian or an elderly pastor for his contribution to the Church. Since certain dioceses have had a long tradition of being headed by a cardinal, when a bishop is newly named to head such a place it is usually a foregone conclusion that he will eventually become a cardinal - as long as he does not blot his copybook. Appointments have sometimes been used to achieve pastoral and political goals. Red hats have also been given out as favours - part and parcel of the chessboard manoeuvring that running the Roman Curia often requires.

This will be the second consistory that Pope Benedict has called, with the latest intake coming from 14 countries and four continents. This would seem to support the Pope's claim that the new cardinals "well reflect the universality of the Church". In fact, more than half the electors are from Europe, although only a quarter of the world's Catholics live in the "old" continent. Pope Benedict's first consistory in March 2006 was similarly marked by uneven representation and with next month's ceremony he will have named 30 cardinal electors - 16 from Europe, eight from the Americas, four from Asia, only two from Africa and none from Oceania.

By next June, following a couple of birthdays, a full 70 per cent of cardinal electors will be 70 years of age or older - that is 84 men, only 13 of whom will have been created in the last two consistories. However the majority of the cardinal electors appointed by Pope Benedict - some 18 - will still be younger than 70 and the bulk of them - 13 - will range between the ages of 59 and 65. Even if the 80-year-old Pope lives another 15 years, these men will still be young enough to elect his successor.

By choosing 10 Europeans to become new cardinals the Bavarian Pope is no doubt reflecting his concern about the waning influence of Catholic Christianity in Europe. For Benedict XVI, Europe and Christianity are so intrinsically interwoven that they form a single culture in which one element cannot maintain its identity without recognising its need for the other.

Influential theologians who question the validity of this Eurocentric view of theology - such as Fr Jon Sobrino SJ in El Salvador and Fr Peter Phan in the United States - have come under investigation by the Vatican. From such a vantage point, one could argue that the Pope was, in fact, being very generous to the other continents by selecting only half of his cardinals from Europe.

One of the Europeans he is counting on is Cardinal-designate Angelo Bagnasco, 64, of Italy. He is one of five from the continent who head local dioceses (the other five are Roman Curia officials). Bagnasco is a former head of Italy's military archdiocese (2003-2006) and holds the rank of a retired army general. The Pope chose him to replace Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone SDB as Archbishop of Genoa last year when he called the Salesian to be his Secretary of State. Just six months after that move, the Pope then boosted Archbishop Bagnasco's profile by appointing him president of the powerful Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI).

Early on in his CEI role he found himself embroiled in a number of controversies, mainly due to his dogmatic conservativism and his unyielding pronouncements on a number of social issues, such as euthanasia, same-sex unions and abortion. He has recently been more cautious in tone, but has still complained that the media have deliberately misinterpreted his words.

Cardinal-designate Bagnasco is considered a "disciple" of the late Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, the man who ordained him to the priesthood in Genoa in 1966. Siri was the leading conservative candidate in the four conclaves from 1958 to 1978. Bagnasco is formal and conservative like his mentor, who was the CEI's first president in 1959.

As to Latin America, the world's most populous Catholic region will continue to be under-represented in the College of Cardinals. Pope Benedict named only three new electors from the so-called "Continent of Hope", but only two, Francisco Robles Ortega (Monterrey, Mexico) and Odilo Pedro Scherer (São Paulo, Brazil), both 58, are residential bishops.

The other new Latin American elector is Cardinal-designate Leonardo Sandri, 70, prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches. An Argentinian with a strong European identity, he has spent most of his priestly life working in the Vatican and its nunciatures. When Pope Benedict XVI was elected, Archbishop Sandri was in the powerful post of Sostituto, or assistant Secretary of State for General Affairs. The new Pope retained him for over two years before promoting him to his current position, a job that traditionally comes with a red hat.

The burgeoning Latin American community in the United States is given partial recognition with Archbishop Daniel DiNardo, 58, of Galveston-Houston (Texas) becaming the first bishop in the American south-west to be named a cardinal. An Italian-American with several years of experience in the Congregation of Bishops in the Vatican, the cardinal-elect heads one of the fastest growing dioceses north of the US-Mexican border.

The European complexion of the Sacred College is seen even more dramatically from the viewpoint that Pope Benedict has created only eight cardinals from the so-called "global south" in the past two years. Besides the three Latin Americans he has also just chosen his first two African electors - Cardinals-designate Théodore-Adrien Sarr, 71, of Dakar (Senegal) and John Njue, 63, of Nairobi (Kenya) - and his first elector in India, Cardinal-designate Oswald Gracias, 62, of Bombay.

Cardinal-elect John Njue is only the second Kenyan to receive the honour. But even at his relatively young age he has been a bishop already for some 21 years. His ascent is somewhat remarkable. In January 2002 he was named co-adjutor Archbishop of Nyeri where he remained for an unusually long six years. But on 6 October the Pope appointed him as Archbishop of Nairobi, and only 11 days later named him a cardinal. Roman trained (at the Urbanianum and the Lateran) he was ordained by Pope Paul VI in 1973. A former seminary professor and rector, he has been involved in Caritas and is chairman of the Kenya Episcopal Conference. Many considered his elevation to cardinal as a negative commentary on the man he replaced in Nairobi, Archbishop Raphael Ndingi, 76, who headed the diocese for more than 10 years and was never given the red hat.

Cardinal-elect Oswald Gracias also has a Roman pedigree (canon law) and is a consultant to the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. A former auxiliary bishop of Bombay (1997-2000), the Pope named him archbishop there just last year after bringing Cardinal Ivan Dias to Rome to head the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples. He is a member of the Vatican-sponsored Vox Clara Committee for monitoring the translation of Latin liturgical texts into English. Cardinal-elect Gracias is also president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India.

No matter how divine providence has brought these 18 men into the Sacred College, this unique honour comes with a high price. It is nothing less than unflinching loyalty to the Supreme Pontiff. Regardless of their theological or pastoral merits, it is extremely rare and considered akin to treason for a cardinal to publicly express opinions even slightly at variance with the Pope's. Recent consistories have proven that even those who were known to do so before becoming cardinals quickly fall into line once they don their red hats.