VATICAN CITY
Whispers in the Loggia
With nary a leak on the timing, at the Noon Angelus on this feast of the Baptism of the Lord Pope Francis unveiled the biglietto of 19 prelates – 16 electors, three “honorary” picks over age 80 – to whom he’ll give the red hat at his first Consistory on February 22nd.
As expected, the list is topped by four Curialists – with, in a significant shift, the head of the newly-enhanced Synod of Bishops, Cardinal-designate Lorenzo Baldisseri, outranking the prefect of the CDF, Cardinal-designate Gerhard Ludwig Müller – but the big story is the likewise-foreseen predominance of names not just from well outside the Vatican, but considerably off the traditional path of membership in the papal “Senate,” including the first-ever cardinals from Haiti, the Caribbean island of Dominica and Burkina Faso… and with them, the heads of only two European sees.
In another notable feature of the slate, for the first time since Blessed John Paul’s first class in 1979, no US prelate has made the cut, but that’s little surprise – as previously noted, the Stateside church’s traditional complement of cardinals is fully topped up, with none of the 11 electors from these shores set to turn 80 until 2015. That said, the lone North American to get the call – Cardinal-designate Gérald Cyprien Lacroix of Quebec – spent the bulk of his formative years in New Hampshire, graduating from Manchester’s Trinity High School and St Anselm’s College before a meteoric rise that, at 53, saw him launched into the helm of the continent’s oldest diocese.
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