Vatican Watchers Expect Pope to Name Number of New Cardinals Soon

The cardinal-counters are out in force at the Vatican. Their reverence masked by the sort of excitement that grips a football fan before the kickoff, they are harbingers of change in the Roman Catholic Church. In recent weeks they have been seen at coffee bars and bookshops around the Holy See, tracking the red-robed princes of the church with the aplomb of handicappers.

As Pope John Paul II settles back into church business after an extensive U.S. visit followed by a monthlong synod of bishops, the betting at the Vatican is that he will soon name a large number of new cardinals, a key step in the renewal of church leadership.

Will there be new cardinals for Los Angeles and Washington? For St. Louis and Detroit? Perhaps the first black American cardinal for New Orleans? The first cardinals for San Antonio and Miami?

Rumors are everywhere; speculation is endless. Both are prompted by a perception of church need and a sense of timing. They reflect no concern for the well-being of the 67-year-old Pope, who is as healthy and ready to travel as ever. Rather, there is a conviction that John Paul is eager to strengthen church administration with younger, more vigorous regional leaders. Also, death has reduced the number of cardinals.

May Act Anytime

The Pope may name a cardinal wherever he chooses, but a number of key cities around the world whose importance and prestige demand cardinals, including Seville, Spain, and Washington, D.C., are currently without one.

The thinking is that John Paul will remedy the cardinal gap within the next few months, and that he may name as many as 21 cardinals worldwide to help implement his policies.

All of the rumors and speculation are based on an appreciation of how the church works--and on total ignorance.

“There are many rumors, based on many bits of information, but they are all unfounded,” Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro Valls said. “That doesn’t mean there won’t be a consistory to name new cardinals the day after tomorrow. The timing and the naming are completely up to the Pope, and him alone.”

Cardinals, all of them bishops, are the highest-ranking authorities of the church after the Pope himself. Only cardinals can elect a pope, and all recent popes have first been cardinals. By a 1975 order of Pope Paul VI, all cardinals under the age of 80 may attend a conclave to choose a new pope, but the total number of cardinal electors may not exceed 120.

At present, according to Vatican statistics, there are 137 living cardinals, but only 99 of them are younger than 80. A number of current electors, including retired Los Angeles Cardinal Timothy Manning, are in their late 70s. Five cardinals, including retired Washington Cardinal Patrick L. O’Boyle and two cardinals under 80, have died this year.

Of the 58 cardinals John Paul has named in his nine years as Pope, 55 of them have been under 80 but only two have come from the Vatican diplomatic corps, which, with the Curia, used to be the surest path to a cardinalate.

“The Pope has stressed the idea of pastorality in choosing cardinals,” Navarro Valls said. “It is probably also the way he will go next time.”

Vatican watchers expect the Pope to choose men who reflect his own predilection for social activism and theological conservatism.

Since the 6th Century, at least, the principal counselors of a pope have been called cardinals, perhaps from the Latin cardo , or hinge. They have been papal electors since the 11th Century, around the same time they were first named in distant countries. From 1586 to the pontificate of John XXIII, in the 1960s, the number of cardinals was frozen at 70. Pope John not only increased the number of cardinals, he also abolished the disused practice of naming layman cardinals.

The last cardinal who was not a priest was Giacomo Antonelli (1806-1876). He was secretary of state to Pope Pius IX and, according to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, he “strove by authoritarian means to concentrate all power in his own hands and did not hesitate to break those who opposed him.”

In choosing the senators of his church, John Paul has an advantage denied his predecessors. They often had to base their selections on long-distance, secondhand information, but the incumbent Pope has been in the homes of many of the men he will reward with a red hat.

Numbers and circumstance suggest that there will be a fair sampling of Americans in the next group of cardinals.

O’Boyle’s death left, as the Vatican puts it, “10 cardinals who travel on U.S. passports.” Eight of them are cardinal electors, but only five administer large archdioceses--the sort of working pastoral priest the Pope has favored for cardinal in previous consistories.

Retired American cardinals along with Manning, who turned 78 on Oct. 15, are Cardinal John J. Carberry of St. Louis, 83, and John F. Dearden of Detroit, who turned 80 in October.

Dallas-born Cardinal William W. Baum, who will be 61 next week, heads the Congregation for Catholic Education within the Vatican Curia. Cardinal Myroslav I. Lubachivsky, 73, named primate of Lvov in the Ukraine as a political gesture by the Pope in 1985, is a naturalized American citizen. Because his church is banned in the Soviet Union, Lubachivsky lives in Rome.

The senior among the American archdiocesan cardinals, John Krol of Philadelphia, 77, is awaiting retirement, as soon as the Vatican announces his successor. That will leave just four major American cities with serving cardinals: San Juan, Puerto Rico, with Martinez Luis Aponte, 65; Chicago, with Joseph L. Bernardin, 59; Boston, with Bernard F. Law, 56, and New York, with John J. O’Connor, 67.

There are no prospective cardinals who are regarded as certainties, but some veteran speculators believe that O’Boyle’s death should mean a red hat for Archbishop James A. Hickey of Washington at the next consistory.

Some, citing the size of his flock and his selection as a papal appointee to the recent synod of bishops, place Los Angeles Archbishop Roger M. Mahony in line for a red hat. Pittsburgh Bishop Anthony J. Bevilacqua, also named to the synod by the Pope, is considered the eventual successor to Krol in Philadelphia.

Although there is precedent for it, there is no consensus among Vatican observers about whether the Pope will name new cardinals in large archdioceses like Los Angeles, Detroit and St. Louis while a predecessor cardinal is alive in retirement.

Noting that the Pope’s U.S. visit took him to Sun Belt cities like San Antonio and Miami encourages the idea that John Paul will name a cardinal to reflect the growth of the church in American cities that have never had one.

Impresssd by Blacks

One observer who made the U.S. trip with John Paul says the Pope was impressed with black American bishops he met in New Orleans.

“If the Pope names as many as three or four new American cardinals, I’d guess that one of them will be black,” the observer said.

Timing seems to favor an early consistory. John Paul, who became Pope in 1978, named new cardinals in July, 1979, in February, 1983, and in May, 1985. A new consistory might be tied to a reform of the Curia, which is on the Pope’s desk.

Also, the papal travel schedule is being studied for clues. For the first time in recent memory, he has no immediate foreign travel plans. He has plenty of time, speculation has it, to name and consecrate new cardinals before a scheduled South American visit next May.