College of Cardinals

“ That laymen can be made Cardinals is generally known, but much confusion of ideas exists on the nature of the Cardinalitian dignity, and of the difference of standing between Cardinals with and without orders. The Sacred College, according to a rule in force since 1585, is fixed at seventy members—divided into six Cardinal Bishops, fifty Cardinal Priests, and fourteen Cardinal Deacons. ”

“ The College of Cardinals, which developed out of the local Roman clergy and has always unwillingly made concessions to foreign coun- tries (the decisive step from a national Roman to a universalistic mem- bership was taken in the eleventh century by the German Pope, Leo IX) , still chooses half its membership from Italy. Nevertheless the number of foreign cardinals is growing and the "Senate of the Roman Pontifex" is gradually approximating what it ought to be a group representative of the world-wide Church. ”

“ During this period a petition to the College of Cardinals was presented by seventeen of the religious bodies of the Albigeois, including the canons of the cathedral of Albi, those of the church of St. Salvi, the convent of Gaillac, etc., imploring in the most pressing terms the Sacred College to intervene and avert the fearful dangers threatening the community. The land, they declare, is Catholic, the people are faithful, cherishing the religion of Rome in their hearts, and professing it with their lips. ”

“ It was not till the 13th century that it became usual to give to foreign prelates the rank of Roman cardinal priests as a mark of distinction. Under the name of the holy college the cardinals, as the spiritual dignitaries most nearly associated with the pope, formed his ecclesiastical and civil council, and were also as such entrusted with the highest offices of state in the papal domains. ”

“ Even more hurtful to the exercise of their pastoral work than the immorality of individual clergymen was the widespread illiteracy and gross ignorance of Christian truth of those who should have been teachers.
§ 97.1. The Roman College of Cardinals.―All the clergy attached to one particular church were called Clerici cardinales down to the 11th century. But after Leo IX. had reformed and re-organized the Roman clergy, and especially after Nicholas II. in A.D. 1059 had transferred the right of papal election to the Roman cardinals, i.e. ”

“ In former times, they heard confessions and enjoined penances. (Newcourt's Repertorium, vol. i. p. 233.) It was not till the twelfth century that the Sacred College of Cardinals was organised; nor was it till 1567 that clergymen were forbidden by Pius V. to assume the title of cardinal unless appointed by the Pope.
Lay Abbots.—In early times we frequently find secular persons denominated "field abbots" and "abbot counts," upon whom the sovereign had bestowed certain abbeys, for which they were obliged to render military service, as for common fiefs. ”

“ Cardinals can pass from one order, title or see to another, by a process of “option.” When a suburbicarian see falls vacant, the cardinals resident at Rome have the right of “opting” for it in order of rank,—that is to say, of claiming it in consistory and receiving their promotion to it. In the same way cardinal deacons can pass after ten years to the order of priests, while retaining after their passage the rank in the Sacred College given them by the date of their promotion. ”

“ The cardinals, creatures of the Pope who has been, are the creators of the Pope who is to be. The Sacred College is permanent: in it there is comprised the continuity of Church history. The whole fullness of the power and significance of the Sacred College is revealed when after the death of a Pope the vacancy is followed by a Conclave.
A Pope dies amidst the prayers of those who surround him. ”

“ We find here the beginning of those later celebrated assemblies called Roman Congregations, which are permanent commissions to examine, judge, and expedite the affairs of the church throughout the world. Each cardinal is made a member of four or more of these congregations, and a cardinal is generally at the head—with the name of prefect—of each of those the presidency of which the pope has not reserved to himself. It is always from among the cardinals that the highest officials of the Church in Rome and of the Sacred College are chosen. ”

“ By means of the snips of parchment, the lead balls, the huge violet burse, nine cardinals were chosen by lot and appointed as Cardinal-Compromissaries. Singularly enough they were Courtleigh, Mundo, Fiamma, Grace, Ferraio, Saviolli, Nefski, Gentilotto, and della Volta. The College executed a compromise in writing, no one contradicting or opposing it, whereby these nine were invested with absolute power and faculty to make provision of a pastor for the Holy Roman Church. ”

“ In 1352, after the death of Clement VI., the cardinals attempted to restrict the Sacred College to twenty members, on the principle that a dignity profusely conferred is despised—communia vilescunt; but Urban VI. found himself constrained, by the course of events at the schism, to create a large number of cardinals, in order to oppose them to the pseudo-cardinals of Clement VII., and at one creation he made twenty-nine, all except three being his own countrymen, Neapolitans; so that the French of another generation were richly paid back for their former preponderance. ”

“ When at last the question arose of giving the Christian world a new pope, this time sole and uncontested, Pierre d’Ailly defended the right of the cardinals, if not to keep the election entirely in their own hands, at any rate to share in the election, and he brought forward an ingenious system for reconciling the pretensions of the council with the rights of the Sacred College. ”

“ As the election of any cardinal seemed impossible, on the 5th of July 1294 the Sacred College united on Pietro di Morrone; the cardinals expected to rule in the name of the celebrated but incapable ascetic. ”

“ Cardinals are delightful men, p. 182most of them—and Mery knows because she is on terms of intimacy with every member of the College—but too frequently they have a fault; they do not understand the artistic temperament. ”

“ The real state of the case is that the rank of Cardinal is, as every degree in the Pope's Court should strictly speaking he, ecclesiastical, though it is no sacred order, but that practically it has been conferred on laymen by the intervention of a fiction like that invented to make Protestants capable of wearing the cross of St. Louis in France, which was given only for ninety-nine years to heretics, who forfeited it, if still unconverted at the end of that period. Laymen were named Cardinals only for twelve months, being bound within that period to take Deacon's orders ”

“ There are seventy cardinals, to whom the Pope assigns various works in helping him to govern the Church. Some of these cardinals are in different parts of the world, as our own cardinals right here in America. There are cardinals in England, France, Germany, Canada, Spain, etc., but a certain number always remain in Rome with the Holy Father. When a bishop is made cardinal he is raised in dignity in the Church, but he does not receive any greater spiritual power than he had when only a bishop. The cardinals, owing to their high dignity, have many privileges which bishops have not. ”

“ No Anglican of the present day, no Protestant, no one who is not an out-and-out Roman Catholic can be, or could ever have been, a Cardinal, yet there were Cardinals here in the Church in England, and, as we have stated, a long succession of them right up to the time of the pseudo-Reformation. How can there be continuity and spiritual identity between the Church in England, which before that change could and did have Cardinals, and the Church of England to-day, which can produce nothing of the kind? ”

“ But what’s really interesting, is that there’s been a long tradition and it’s very rare, in which the pope, who chooses the cardinals of the church, which are the ultimate body who choose the next pope and so forth—he can make someone a cardinal in a process called in pectore, which means he makes someone a cardinal but he doesn’t tell anyone. He doesn’t name the person. ”

“ His privileges and his priority are valid everywhere no matter what diocese he may enter, and rank him above all other ecclesiastical dignitaries. Cardinals who travel do not always find it easy to com- bine observance of their rank to which they are in duty bound with friendly regard for the episcopal master of the diocese they visit. The jurisdiction of every bishop who is not a cardinal, as well as his right to his own throne and baldachino, are abrogated in the presence of a cardinal; for every cardinal is a crown prince of the Church, and may be elected the next Pope. ”

“ In the afternoon of the last day of the novendiali, as they are called, the cardinals assemble in a church near the Quirinal palace, and walk thence in procession, accompanied by their conclavisiti, a secretary, a chaplain, and a servant or two, to the great gate of the royal residence, in which one will remain as master and supreme lord. Of course the hill is crowded by persons lining the avenue kept open for the procession. Cardinals never before seen by them, or not for many years, pass before them ”

“ Sixtus V. fixed this congregation, and empowered it to interpret all points both of discipline and faith. This congregation meets once a week at the palace of the senior cardinal, the whole assembly being composed of persons of that dignity. The president is chosen out of the body by the pope, and is paid twelve hundred crowns of gold yearly out of the apostolic chamber. The other cardinals have no salaries, but think it the highest honour to assist in explaining the most important matters relating to religion. ”

“ Sometimes they have had recourse to what is called inspiration; that is, the first cardinal rises up in chapel, and, after an exhortation to make choice of a capable person, immediately, as if inspired, names one himself: to which, if two-thirds of the cardinals present agree, he is reckoned legally chosen.
When one of the cardinals is chosen pope, the master of the ceremonies comes to his cell, to acquaint him with the news of his promotion. ”

“ Let a man have no wife living and there appears to be no tangible obstacle to arrest a Pope, if so disposed, from naming him Cardinal. It would, however, seem that a lay Cardinal becomes de facto so far subject to ecclesiastical discipline as to require the Pope's consent to return legitimately into secular life and to lay aside the insignia of his rank. There is a long list of Cardinals who have done so, but with the exception of rebellious ones like Chatillon, they all had sought and obtained the Pope's sanction. ”

“ A number of these dissertations have been printed, and form a collection of several volumes entitled "Dissertazioni lette nella Pontificia Accademia Romana di Religione Cattolica". The Academy has for honorary censors a number of cardinals. The president of the Academy is also a cardinal. It includes promoters, censors, resident members, and corresponding members. It awards an annual prize for the members most assiduous at the meetings, and is located in the palace of the Cancelleria Apostolica. ”

“ I hope—for I think it is permissible—for a cardinal who resides in his diocese. Not that the cardinals of the curia are wanting in breadth or in experience, but as a rule those prelates who live in the provinces are in immediate contact with the people. They have a better chance of seeing things from the inside than those who occupy an official post in Rome, important and indispensable though these may be. But of necessity the non-resident cardinals are less well known in Rome than those of the curia, their candidature must therefore be slower and the election longer. ”

“ With the exception of the classes resulting from the order to which they belong, there are no distinctions between the rights of the various cardinals. As to the ordination obligatory upon them, it is that indicated in their title; cardinal bishops must naturally be bishops; for cardinal priests it is enough to have received the priesthood, though many of them are actually bishops; similarly, it is enough for cardinal deacons to have received the diaconate, though most of them are priests ”

“ The public education is in the hands of ecclesiastics, under the direction of thirteen Cardinals. All the charitable establishments, all the funds applicable to the relief of the poor, are the patrimony of ecclesiastical directors. Congregations of Cardinals decide causes in their leisure hours, and the Bishops of the kingdom are so many living tribunals. ”

“ After the cardinals came the patriarchs and primates, and then the archbishops and bishops. It was, in truth, a sublime evidence of the truth and the living force of our holy religion to behold these prelates of the church, assembled from every quarter of the globe, gradually passing down from their seats, as their turn came, to join the line that was slowly passing up the centre of the hall toward the throne of the pontiff, that, kneeling before him, each one might personally unite in this solemn profession of a common faith. ”

“ But in substance they are all equally splendid, equally formal, and—now that the world no longer looks to the Vatican for its creeds—all equally insignificant and dull.
Thus it is not as a deliberative body that the cardinals take part in the government. Their collective functions are for the most part purely formal, and the great wheel turns steadily on its axle without any direct help from them. ”

“ And so recently as March, 1852, by letters of the Secretariate of State, he appointed four cardinals to be "members of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition;" giving incontrovertible evidence that provision is made for attending to communications of Inquisitors in partibus from all parts of the world. As the old cardinals die off, their vacant seats are filled by others. ”