How Pope Francis has turned the body that will elect his successor completely on its head
Italian Mauro Gambetti, custos of the Sacred Convent of Assisi, receives his red hat from Pope Francis during a consistory to create 13 new cardinals at St. Peter's Basilica on Nov. 28, 2020. (Photo: AFP/Vatican Media)
Pope Francis is either an anarchist or a man with an unshakable faith in the work of the Holy Spirit. Of course, he could actually be both.
How else does one describe what the 85-year-old pope did on May 29 when he announced a consistory for late August during which he intends to make 21 mostly obscure figures the Roman Church's latest cardinals?
The timing of the announcement, the date of the consistory and the names of the cardinals-designate are — as one longtime Vatican official told me with utmost charity — "baffling".
Even more than his previous seven consistories, this eighth red hat ceremony has all the hallmarks of disrupting previous ways the popes have created cardinals.
Other than the three Roman Curia officials that top the list of the 16 men under the age of 80 who are thus eligible to vote in a conclave, there are only two other men in posts that have previously been led by a cardinal.
The Jesuit pope this time around is appointing cardinals to 11 places (four countries and seven dioceses) that have never had one before, accelerating a pattern that he began in earnest in 2015 with his second consistory.
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