Friday, January 6, 2012

Big Day - The Pope Picks New Cardinals Including Dolan of New York City - Links

It's happy and fun Catholic news day for American Catholics and also a sad news day for American Catholics. Elevation of people , that represent in many ways regions and cultures , to the RED hat by the Pope is fun and important. However the massive school closures in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia , which might make national news today even, is not happy. However that news even has a bright sad. It might make Catholic education better in the long run in that Archdiocese.

But lets focus on the positive. Two American Archbishop's were elevated to the Cardinal position. One being Archbishop Dolan of New York, in which the Pope had to break some protocol to do, and the former Archbishop of Baltimore O'Brien. Right over the border Collins of Toronto was also elevated.

The Pope's picks are heavy on Italians and Vatican /Curia officials and thus has a tad of at least temporarily skewing a few things. For instance no Cardinal were picked from Africa today. However this is largely because of timing and necessity in doing some Curia and Vatican housekeeping and maintenance in my view.

I have already seen rumors that the Pope will indeed being doing another Consistory perhaps as early as this November which is pretty darn fast.

Today is significant also because when these men are elevated it will mark the first time that the people who will pick the next Pope were chosen by Pope Benedict. The rest were chosen by John Paul II. While Pope Benedict's Pontificate has been relatively short so far in comparision to John Paul II timing has allowed him to have a significant influence in this regard much fast.

John Allen as usual is the first stop on this matters and has a good overview here at Five things to know about the newest cardinals

Rocco at Whispers in the Loggia hit the American angle including the important Archbishop Dolan of NYC component fo this story. See "Pope Benedict Is Putting the Red Hat On the Empire State Building": Now A Cardinal... But Forever Tim and For Red Dawn, Tim Does "Today"

In the Great White North see Cardinal-Designate Thomas Collins reacts to his nomination.

3 comments:

Kurt said...

My best to the new cardinals, but I am disappointed that only two pastors from all of the Third World is named (Hong Kong and the Head of the Syro-Malabar Church with no one else from Asia, Africa or Latin America), and further, so many bureucrats rather than pastors.

James H said...

Well I think this is a tad of a matter of timing and anything and again dealt with the housekeeping of just having to do a lot of the Curia at the same time.

Which I think there are the rumors that one another is coming up in record time. I suspect it be far far far less Italian this time.

So I think this was just a matter of timing.

TO be fair one the "burecrats" was from Brazi.

PLus many of these people have had extensive Pastoral experience before

Kurt said...

Those are fair points, James, but I lean towarsd the theory that the proper charism for curial work is the diaconate. The office of bishop exists by Divine will to be pastor of a particular church of God's faithful. It is "extraordinary" at best to ordain a man to the episcopacy for the purposes of being a church bureaucrat.