UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph
By Damian Thompson
Last updated: January 12th, 2014
Nearly five years after becoming Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols is to be made a cardinal by Pope Francis, it was announced this morning. The first thing to say about this news is – congratulations! It must have been a frustrating delay, caused mainly by the fact that Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor retired while he was under 80 and was still an active Vatican functionary. Tradition suggests that an area as small as England and Wales would not have two active cardinals (though, in fact, the situation has never arisen before: Cardinal Cormac was the first Archbishop of Westminster not to die in office).
The second thing to say might best be phrased like this. Archbishop Vincent Nichols has a kept a low profile – to put it mildly – since moving to Westminster, where he has seemed less at ease than he did as an outstandingly successful Archbishop of Birmingham. As a cardinal, his voice will carry extra weight, especially as he has also been appointed to the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops. (As soon as that was announced, a few weeks ago, we knew the red hat was in the bag.) When speaking in public, he has a tendency to fall back on clichés – quite unnecessarily so, since he is an intelligent man.
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