Updated Explainer: Cardinals as Princes of the Church

What is a Cardinal?

For example, Cardinal Rosales’ titular church is the Santissimo Nome de
Maria church in the Via Latina, Rome.

First, a quick review of the three kinds of holy orders in
the Catholic Church. There are three: deacons, priests, and bishops. Everything
else is an added dignity, or title.

Next, let’s begin defining what a cardinal is, in the Roman
Catholic Church.

A Cardinal is, literally, someone who has been given a title
by the Pope, in the same way a duke or an earl’s given a title by a king or
queen.

In fact, the technical term for how Cardinals are made, is
the exact same term used in the British nobility. A Cardinal is “created” by
the Pope, the same way a Duke is “created” by the Queen of England. A Cardinal
then, is someone who has a title, and with that title come certain privileges
and responsibilities.

So when someone is created a Cardinal, they’re given a
title, and so, the proper reference to someone named Juan de la Cruz upon being
created a Cardinal, is Juan Cardinal de la Cruz.

I. Creating Cardinals

Protocol: In the Congress of Vienna, which convened to sort out
international diplomatic rules after the defeat of Napoleon, Cardinals were
recognized as being on the level of Princes, something that gave them a
specific stature in international protocol. This is why Cardinals are also
referred to as Princes of the Catholic Church.

The honorific for a Cardinal is Your Eminence, just as for
Archbishops and Bishops its Your Excellency, although in the UK a bishop has
the same honorific as a duke, which is, Your Grace.

History

So originally, being a Cardinal was just a job description.
But when did they start having real power, and influence, including the
exclusive duty to elect new popes?

From the 8th century, popes were exclusively
elected by the Roman clergy. Before that, they were elected by the clergy and
the faithful or perhaps in some cases, appointed by their predecessor.
Cardinals remained what they were: deacons, priests, and bishops with special
duties in the Archdiocese of Rome.

Then Pope Leo IX (1049-1054) began appointing non-Italian
cardinals. This was also when cardinals obviously began serving as the
principal advisers of the Pope –that is, they began to have power.

And because they had powers, and because being a Cardinal
was more of a title of nobility than what it originally was, Popes creating
Cardinals became characterized by politics. It conferred prestige on
foreigners, and allowed Popes to reward relatives and allies.

Giovanni de’ Medici became cardinal at age 13, and became Pope Leo X in 1513.

Or Cardinal Richelieu, Prime Minister of France, too.

Because many Cardinals came to combine political and
spiritual power, Cardinals sometimes had veto power in papal elections. The
last time used was in 1903, when John Cardinal Puszyna, archbishop of Krakow,
opposed the election of Mariano Cardinal Rampolla. 

Pius X, who was elected at that conclave, abolished the
“right of exclusion” or veto power of some Catholic kings exercised through
Cardinals. Examples of how ridiculous things could get was how, in
1731, Louis Bourbon, son of Philip V of Spain, became a cardinal at age 8, but
he eventually married.

In
1875, the first Cardinal from the Western Hemisphere, John Cardinal McCloskey
of New York was created

True internationalization of College of Cardinals began with
Pius XII, St. Bernard of Clairvaux had asked in the 12th
century isn’t it reasonable that cardinals be selected from every nation whose
office it is to judge all nations. Pius XII created the first cardinals in Africa, India, and
China.

John XXIII created the first cardinals in Japan and the
Philippines. The first Filipino Cardinal was Rufino Cardinal Santos; and to
mark the event, the plaza in front of the Manila Cathedral was renamed Plaza
Roma.

Paul VI created Cardinals from the Eastern Rite churches:
Maronite, Melkite, Coptic, Ukranian, Chaldrean-Malabar churches in communion
with Rome.

Symbols and Rituals

Why red? The colors of the hats and sashes of bishops and
archbishops is amaranth; 

Cardinals wear  red,
to symbolize how, as the closest advisers of living popes and electors of new
ones, they must be ready to shed their blood in defense of the Church if
necessary.

The symbol of a Cardinal is a red hat, of the ancient type
seen in this picture. While maintained in heraldry, the handing of this type of red hat, called a galero, was abolished in 1967. Today, only the pope uses the galero.

Today, they’re given a different kind of hat, called a
zucchetta. 

They are also then given special rings by the Popes that
create them. Above is the design of the ring, used from Paul VI until recently.

The Consistory of Creation

II. Types of Cardinals

And there are three types, or degrees, of Cardinals. These
types originate from the earliest origins of Cardinals. From lowest to highest,
they are, as follows.

Cardinal deacons: originally the deacons in charge of social
services for 18 regions of Rome. Today, Cardinal deacons are Cardinals created
over the age of 80, and thus no longer entitled to vote, or who have been
created Cardinals but choose to remain priests, usually also because of age.

Cardinal priests: originally, priests temporarily
incardinated to certain shrines or basilicas for special liturgical services.
Most Cardinals today, who also govern their own diocese in countries abroad,
are cardinal priests.

Cardinal bishops: originally, the seven bishops for seven
dioceses surrounding Rome, and referred to as such, when they held special
liturgical services in St. John Lateran, the cathedral of Rome. In 1962,
Cardinal bishops were relieved by John XXIII from having jurisdiction over
these dioceses. Today Cardinal bishops are often the most senior officials of
the Roman Curia, or bureaucracy of the Church.

There
have been a total of five Filipino Cardinals: Rufino Cardinal Santos, Jaime
Cardinal Sin, and Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales of Manila; Julio Cardinal Rosales
and Ricardo Cardinal Vidal of Cebu; and Jose Cardinal Sanchez, a Filipino whose
career was been spent in the Vatican bureaucracy, or the Roman Curia. Of the
three most recent Filipino Cardinals two, Rosales and Vidal, are Cardinal Priests
while Sanchez was a Cardinal Deacon.

How many Cardinals are there?

In the 12th Century, the number was 53, normally
20 to 30; sometimes, below 10; in 1586 Sixtus V set the maximum number at 70 in
imitationof the 70 chosen by Moses (Exodus 24:1) and Jesus (Luke 10:1). From 1856-1958 there were 60-70 cardinals; John XXIII created more than
80; Paul VI reformed the College of Cardinals in 1970 and increased the number
to 120, not counting those over 80, whom he excluded as electors.

What do Cardinals do?

Because the Catholic Church is a religion, that happens to
have its own state, the Pope is both head of the Catholic Church, and the head
of state of the Vatican City, which a portion of the city of Rome.

In strictly political terms, the Pope is one of the last
absolute monarchs left in the world, yet the only one elected. Besides the
religious functions of the Pope, he also has political functions as the head of
the oldest continuously-operating government on the planet, that of the Church
as a whole, and of the Papal territory in Rome.

III. Cardinals in the Government of the Catholic Church

Indeed, for the government of Rome, the College of Cardinals
served as the Senate of Rome; only in 1983 was the term senate dropped in the
Code of Canon Law, adopting instead the term, “special college.”

Meetings of Cardinals with the Pope are called Consistories.
Consistories until 1588, were the consultative meetings between Pope and
cardinals, then suppressed. Thereafter, it became a term for the ritual in
which Popes would announce the creation of new Cardinals.

In 1979, consistories were revived as means of consultations
between the Pope and Cardinals. When bishops are consulted by the Pope, the
gatherings are called synods; in a sense, the synods are the lower house and
the consistories the upper house of Church governance.

The Code of Canon Law, in its latest form from 1983, also
defines two types of consistory: ordinary and extraordinary. The former, for
cardinals present in Rome and the latter, for all cardinals in the world.

Together, Cardinals comprise the College of Cardinals. It is
as a College that they come together, to attend to the funeral of a Pope, and
elect a new one. They do so in what’s called a Conclave, which means, “locked
with a key,” the process of closed-door elections that began in 1274.

Which brings us to the exclusive privilege of Cardinals,
which is to elect a Pope.

This is because in 1059, cardinals became the sole electors
of the Pope. At first, the cardinal bishops would meet and propose a candidate
and ask the cardinal priests to vote on it. Since 1179, the cardinals together have exclusively elected
popes, with one exception, in 1417 when the Western Schism was ended when two
sides joined together with representatives bishops and cardinals to elect a new
pope.

What is the significance of the November 24 Consistory?

Governance

Spirituality

Renewed Ritual

IV. A Filipino Primate

From the foundation of the Catholic Church in the Philippines, until we became independent in 1946, the archbishops of Manila were foreigners. American sovereignty meant that the Vatican and the
religious orders began sending non-Spaniards: the last Spanish Archbishop of
Manila, Bernardino Nozaleda, resigned in 1901 and Manila was administered by
Cebu until the first American Archbishop of Manila, Jeremiah J. Harty, arrived in 1904.

In 1916
he was succeeded by Michael J. O’Doherty who established the Archbishop’s
Palace after World War II in Villa San Miguel, because he loved playing golf
and living in Mandaluyong placed him close to the Wack-Wack golf club.
Archbishop O’Dougherty liked to claim he was the Primate of the Philippines,
which wasn’t true.

In 1949, Manila
gained its first Filipino Archbishop, Gabriel Reyes, who died in 1952. In
1960,  his successor was Rufino Cardinal
Santos, who’d been Archbishop of Manila since 1953. Then his successor from
1974, was created Jaime Cardinal Sin, in 1976; and in turn, his successor, from
2003 when Sin’s retirement was accepted, was created Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales
in 2006 after Sin had passed away. 

Upon Cardinal Rosales’ retirement, his successor became Archbishop Chito Tagle, who is now a Cardinal-designate until the Consistory on November 24, when he will be created a Cardinal: an unusual step, since his predecessor is still alive. However, the death of Cardinal Sanchez recently, reduced the “Philippine quota,” so to speak; and furthermore, both surviving Filipino Cardinals, Rosales and Vidal, are past voting age.

Cebu gained its first Filipino bishop much earlier than
Manila, in the person of Juan Bautista
Gorordo in 1909. In 1933, the diocese of Cebu was made an
archdiocese, with Archbishop Gabriel Reyes as the first Filipino archbishop.

Julio
Cardinal Rosales was created the first Cardinal Archbishop of Cebu in 1969,
followed by the creation of Ricardo Cardinal Vidal in 1985.