Pope names 24 new cardinals

[ROME] As expected, Pope Benedict today announced a consistory to create more cardinals on 20 November, reading out the list of the new porporati, or "red hats", at the end of his Wednesday audience.

Twenty of the 24 are elettori, that is, eligible to elect the next pope in a future conclave if it were held tomorrow. The other four appointees are over 80, and therefore ineligible to vote.

For English-speaking Catholics, the headline is that Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, will be made a cardinal, along with Archbishop Raymond Burke, head of the Vatican's supreme court, or Apostolic Signatura. The Archbishop of Toronto, Thomas Collins, was not, after all, on the list, but at 63, there's plenty of time to make him one. The same is true of Archbishops Timothy Dolan of New York and Vincent Nichols of Westminster, who as well as being short in the tooth have voting-age cardinals in their dioceses.

Because of the large number of curial red hats, the consistory will look and feel very Italian -- 10 of the appointments were of Italians, eight of whom are elettori, raising the Italian proportion of the College to 20 per cent.

But the other striking point about the nominations is that four of them are from Africa -- Egypt, Congo, Zambia and Guinea.

However, just seven of the 20 new electors are from outside Europe and North America, so the distribution of Catholics in the world is still far from being reflected in the College of Cardinals.

On the other hand, six out of 10 of the non-curial red hats are from the developing world, which is a high proportion.

Here is the full list.

1. Angelo Amato (Italy), Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints;
2. Antonio Naguib (Egypt), Patriarch of the Coptic Church of Alexandria, and relator at this week's Mid-East Synod;
3. Robert Sarah (Guinea), President of Cor Unum, the Vatican's development agency;
4. Francesco Monterisi (Italy), Archpriest of the Basilica of St. Paul;
5. Fortunato Baldelli (Italy), head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, which lifts excommunications;
6. Raymond Burke (United States), Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican's high court;
7. Kurt Koch (Switzerland), President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity;
8. Paolo Sardi (Italy), Pro-Patron of the Order of Malta;
9. Mauro Piacenza (Italy), Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy;
10. Velasio De Paolis (Italy), President of the Prefecture of Economic Affairs for the Holy See;
11. Gianfranco Ravasi (Italy), President of the Pontifical Council for Culture;
12. Medardo Joseph Mazombwe (Zambia), retired Archbishop of Lusaka;
13. Raul Eduardo Vela Chiriboga (Ecuador), Archbishop of Quito;
14. Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya (Democratic Republic of Congo), Archbishop of Kinshasa;
15. Paolo Romeo (Italy), Archbishop of Palermo;
16. Donald Wuerl (United States), Archbishop of Washington;
17. Raymundo Damasceno Assis (Brazil), Archbishop of Aparecida;
18. Kazimierz Nycz (Poland), Archbishop of Warsaw;
19. Albert Malcom Ranjith (Sri Lanka), Archbishop of Colombo;
20. Reinhard Marx (Germany), Archbishop of Munich.

The Pope also named the following "honorary" (ie not eligible to vote) cardinals:

1. Elio Sgreccia (Italy), former president of the Pontifical Academy for Life
2. Jose Manuel Estepa Llaurens (Spain), retired head of the Military Ordinariate
3. Walter Brandmüller (Germany), former head of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Science
4. Domenico Bartolucci (Italy), retired director of the Sistine Chapel choir.

The College of Cardinals now has exactly 120 electors, the number fixed by Pope Paul VI but regularly ignored by Pope John Paul II.

This is Pope Benedict's third consistory (the first two were in 2006 and 2007); when the above get their red hats, the number of Benedictine appointees (who are also electors) will be 50 out of the 120.