The choosing of new cardinals and their inauguration ceremony last week is very important, as most probably one of them will be the new Pope. Quite naturally we do not want to put any limits to the generosity of Divine Providence vis-à-vis the Pope's age but we still consider our assumption to be probable.
The present college of cardinals is one of the largest - 135 of them eligible to vote in a papal election. This is 15 more than the limit imposed by Pope Paul VI in 1975 and reaffirmed by Pope John Paul II in 1996.
One should remember that there is a cardinal in pectore. If he is under 80 years old, that could make the overall voting total 136. However, he will not be eligible to participate in a papal conclave until he is publicly identified by Pope John Paul II. If his identity is still secret when this Pope dies, his status as cardinal will then lapse.
Pope John Paul had surpassed the limit on one previous occasion, during his last previous consistory in February 2001, when he brought the number of eligible electors up to the same total: 135. The Pope - who, as supreme legislator for the Church, sets the rules for a papal conclave - has the authority to set aside the maximum number of cardinals who are eligible to vote.
But by exceeding the limit, the Pope has created a potential snag for canon lawyers. The cardinals who will supervise a papal conclave do not have the authority to lay aside rules set by a Roman Pontiff. So if the Pope dies while the number of cardinal-electors remains above 120, the cardinals charged with the organisation of the conclave would be bound by the statutory limit. Presumably Pope John Paul has added a codicil to his will, giving those prelates the authority to modify the limit on cardinal-electors.
Moreover, the number of cardinals eligible to vote in a conclave will drop rapidly, as some prelates die and other reach the age of 80, at which point they cease to be eligible voters. Even in the unlikely event that no cardinal-electors die in the coming year, the number of eligible voters will fall to 121 by the end of 2004. Three cardinals will mark their 80th birthdays before the end of this year; ten more in the course of 2004.
The geographical distribution of the College of Cardinals remains essentially unchanged, despite the 30 new members. Europeans remain the largest group among the potential voters, with 66 cardinals, or 49 per cent of the total. The Latin American contingent is next in size, with 24 cardinal-electors or 18 per cent. There are 14 from North America and 13 each from Africa and Asia, and five from Oceania.
Italy is the country best represented among the cardinal-electors, with 23 prelates, accounting for 17 per cent of the total. The power of the Italian cardinals as a voting block is weakened, however, by the likelihood that the prelates in Rome would be split among several different papal candidates.
The next-largest contingents - from the US (11), Spain (eight), Germany (six), Brazil (six), Poland (five) and France (five) - are regarded as more likely to throw their support behind a single candidate.
The cardinal-electors now working in the Roman Curia - 25 of the 135 voting total - could form a highly influential block in a papal conclave. Since they regularly meet with the prelates from all over the world as they come to Rome for ad limina visits, these facing the Church and the individual prelates working in other countries.
The new cardinals will bring the average age of the electors down slightly - from 72.5 years to 71. And the number of cardinal-electors aged over 70 will drop, from 68 per cent of the total to 60 per cent.
In the nine consistories of his pontificate, Pope John Paul II has created 231 cardinals (plus one in pectore), of whom 130 are now eligible to vote in a conclave. Thus 96 per cent of the eligible voters were raised to the College of Cardinals by the current Pontiff; the remaining five prelates were elevated by Pope Paul VI.