The six bishops being created cardinals of the Holy
Roman Church this coming Saturday are: US Archbishop James M. Harvey, 63,
prefect of the papal household; Lebanon's Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai, 72;
Indian Archbishop Baselios Cleemis Thottunkal, 53, head of the Syro-Malankara
Catholic Church; Nigerian Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan of Abuja, 68;
Colombian Archbishop Ruben Salazar Gomez of Bogota, 70; and Philippine
Archbishop Luis Tagle of Manila, 55. As signs of the new vocation the new cardinals
will receive from the Pope the red cardinal's hat and a ring. By custom they
are referred as Your Eminence and in print they are often called "Princes of
the Church."
I saw the Il Foglio headline: "A consistory to lead the church out of its Roman misgovernance." In fact, it is making its way around the world as a legitimate explanation of why we are getting new cardinals. Some people have silly ideas are all to willing to send them high and low. Are there real problems in the papal government? Yes. Have there been problems with governing the Church? Yes. Does my faith rest on how the pope handles church problems? NO!!!!
No doubt that Benedict has some problems. But taking the long view of things, new cardinals don't "make things all better." It is highly doubtful that Vatileaks and any other perceived form of "misgovernance" not part of the decision to create cardinals at this point, even had after several months of the last consistory. Instead of forming crazy opinions and pretty insidious conclusions, perhaps the news media might want to take a step back and consider the reality of what the Church the Holy Father is really doing for the good of the Church. Perhaps Cindy Wooden's capturing of what the Pope said when he announced his intention to create new cardinals: "the Church is a Church of all peoples, (and) speaks in all languages."
I would read Cindy Wooden's article on the forthcoming consistory published by CNS on November 16. I trust Md Wooden, so should you.
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