Benedict Appoints 15 Cardinals

Pope Benedict XVI named his first group of cardinals Wednesday, including an outspoken Hong Kong prelate and the former archbishop of San Francisco, as the pontiff put his stamp on the elite cadre that rules the Roman Catholic Church.

Benedict announced the elevation of 15 cardinals and said the new “princes of the church,” as they are known, will be installed March 24, when each is bestowed with a bright red hat that signifies the blood they are willing to sacrifice for their faith.

Because cardinals shape the future of the papacy by electing the next pope, their selection is one of the most important tasks Benedict will undertake.

And because this is the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s first appointment of cardinals since becoming pope 10 months ago, the choices also provide insight into the German-born prelate’s thinking and agenda.

“The cardinals constitute a sort of senate around the pope,” Benedict said, “upon which he relies in carrying out the duties associated with his ministry.”

Of the 15 designated cardinals, three are from Asia, and one of those is Joseph Zen, the bishop of Hong Kong, a former British colony that has been under Chinese rule for nearly a decade. It was a bold choice, interpreted as both an outreach to China, a powerful nation of 1.3 billion people, and a willingness to demand religious freedom for Christian minorities in the communist country.

Zen’s elevation comes at a difficult moment in relations between the Vatican and Beijing. Both have sought to establish formal ties but have run up against long-standing disputes, including the regime’s desire to limit Vatican authority over the church in China.

The Shanghai-born Zen, 74, has been critical of China’s human rights record, including the jailing of priests and oppression of Catholics, many of whom attend unauthorized churches.

Benedict’s designation “shows his priority for China,” Zen told reporters after learning of his appointment.

Signaling his interest in maintaining the global complexion of the College of Cardinals, a trend established by the late Pope John Paul II, Benedict added two other Asians, including the archbishop of Seoul, Nicolas Cheong Jin-Suk, but only one cleric each from Africa and South America.

“The list well reflects the universal nature of the church,” the pope said. “In fact, they come from various parts of the world and carry out different tasks in the service of the people of God.”

That said, the “first world” was more than well represented: Eight appointees are from Europe and two from the United States.

An especially sentimental appointment came in the figure of Stanislaw Dziwisz, 66, the archbishop of Krakow, Poland, and longtime personal secretary and confidant to John Paul.

Cardinals must be younger than 80 to participate in the secret session known as a conclave to choose a new pope. Three of the 15 appointees announced Wednesday are older than 80 and thus not eligible to become electors. Of the sitting cardinals, two will turn 80 before the installation ceremony next month. Thus, the number of cardinals eligible to elect a pope will be 120, while the total number of cardinals will be 193.

In making his announcement Wednesday, Benedict said he wanted to keep the number of electors at 120, a ceiling established more than 30 years ago by Pope Paul VI but sometimes exceeded by the most recent occupant of the papal throne. When John Paul died in April, he had appointed 113 of the 115 cardinals who chose his replacement.

Benedict announced the names of the new cardinals during his weekly general audience at the Vatican. The first name he read was that of William J. Levada, the onetime archbishop of San Francisco, who succeeded Benedict late last year as head of the church department that enforces doctrine, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

That position made Levada, 69, the most influential American at the Vatican, and his promotion to cardinal was widely expected because Curia departments are normally headed by cardinals.

The second American on the list was Sean Patrick O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, whom John Paul in 2003 assigned the tricky duty of repairing the damage left by the priest sex abuse scandal that forced the resignation of O’Malley’s predecessor, Cardinal Bernard Law.

O’Malley, 61, a Capuchin Franciscan friar born in Ohio, said he was “deeply humbled and honored” by his new title.

“Together, we have faced many challenges and I look forward to continuing our work together toward strengthening our church,” O’Malley said in a statement.

Although Benedict emphasized the “universality” of the church in making his first appointments, others noted that the lone African he named -- Archbishop Peter Poreku Dery of Ghana -- was older than 80 and thus ineligible to select a future pontiff. Africa is home to the fastest-growing Catholic population, and many in the church believe that African prelates must be more readily incorporated into the official hierarchy.

The voting power held by developing nations after the next installation of cardinals will in fact decline slightly, while that held by Europe will increase, noted Father Thomas Reese, former editor of the Jesuit magazine America and visiting scholar at Santa Clara University in California.

“Benedict has increased the voice of the First World in the College of Cardinals and reduced the voice of the Third World,” Reese said in an e-mail statement.

Many factors go into the naming of cardinals, but Benedict has made it clear that one of his priorities is the resurrection of the Catholic faith in Western Europe, once firmly Christian but now increasingly secular, with growing non-Christian immigrant communities.

Since 1059, cardinals have been the exclusive electors of the pope.