By Nick Squires
The Telegraph
November 19, 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/8147164/Pope-appoints-24-new-cardinals-Italian-set-to-be-next-pope.html
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| Pope Benedict XVI holds a Prayer Vigil in Hyde Park, London Photo: AFP/GETTY |
Pope Benedict XVI is to appoint 24 new cardinals on Saturday, 10 of whom will be Italian – making the prospect that his successor will be Italian more likely.
The new appointments will boost the number of Italian cardinals to 25, giving them huge clout when it comes to electing a new pontiff on the death of Benedict XVI.
The "Italianisation" of the Catholic Church's hierarchy fuelled speculation that after Benedict, a German, and his Polish predecessor, John Paul II, the leadership of the world's one billion Catholics could swing back to Italy.
The last Italian Pope was John Paul I, who was elected in August, 1978, but died just 33 days later, his sudden death still the subject of conspiracy theories.
The new members bring the College of Cardinals to 203, 121 of whom are under age 80 and thus eligible to vote in a conclave – the process by which a new Pope is elected in secrecy in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel.
Of the cardinals from European countries, nearly half those of voting age will be Italian.
With the new cardinals, Benedict will have chosen 40 per cent of the College of Cardinals, infusing the group with conservative, tradition-minded prelates like himself.
That will virtually guarantee that a future Pope will not radically overhaul the direction of the Church.
The other appointees to be announced at the ceremony known as a consistory – only the third of Benedict's papacy – will be drawn from around the world, including the US, Germany, Brazil, Spain, Switzerland, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia. None are from Britain or Ireland.
At a meeting at the Vatican yesterday, the Pope and a group of existing cardinals discussed the Church's response to the paedophile priest scandal as well as the conversion of disaffected Anglicans to Rome.
It was also announced that Benedict will make the first official state visit to his native Germany next year, probably in September.
He will travel to the archdioceses of Berlin and Freiburg in the southwest of the country and the diocese of Erfurt in the former Communist east, according to the German Episcopal Conference.
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