Opinion: Cardinal virtues

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Stalin asked how many divisions the pope had. Hard to tell, but as of Nov. 24 Benedict XVI will have 23 new cardinals to advise him, 18 of whom will be eligible to vote on his successor. With Kremlinology now out of fashion, Vaticanology has taken over, and commentators inside and outside the Catholic fold are deconstructing the latest additions to one of the world’s most exclusive “colleges.”

Is this latest crop proof that Benedict wants to re-Europeanize the College of Cardinals? Is the appointment to the college of the octogenarian leader of the Chaldean Church in Iraq a refection of the pope’s concern that Christians are being driven out of the Middle East, the cradle of the faith? Or maybe a red hat for Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly of Babylon is meant to remind the United States that Christians in Iraq were better off under Saddam Hussein. (Remember that Pope John Paul II spoke out against the war.)

Closer to home, the red hat for the archbishop of Galveston and Houston in Texas is being interpreted as an affirmation by the Vatican of the Latino-ization of the American church, although Cardinal-designate Daniel N. DiNardo is an Italian-American from Pittsburgh. More interesting is the absence of a red hat for another former Pittsburgher, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C.

My former colleague Ann Rodgers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, one of the best-plugged-in religion reporters in the country, notes that Wuerl’s predecessor in Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, is only 76 and still eligible to vote in a papal election, which is one explanation for bypassing Wuerl in this consistory.

But it’s also interesting that Wuerl, who earlier in his career was viewed as an archconservative, has angered conservative Catholics by refusing to deny Holy Communion to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and other pro-choice Catholic politicians. In May, in a conversation with reporters en route to Brazil, Benedict seemed to endorse not just denying Communion to pro-choice legislators but actually excommunicating them.