January 23, 2005

In the past year the parish has hosted, as rectory guests or as liturgical celebrants or both, six cardinals of the Church. This is uncommon for a parish and we are honored to be host for these "counselors of the Pope." Cardinal Egan has come to us twice. Cardinal Keeler, the Archbishop of Baltimore, our nation's oldest archdiocese, has on occasion offered a weekday Mass and attended some of our parish events, as has Cardinal Arinze, who is Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, and Cardinal Dulles. Cardinal Schonborn of Vienna and Cardinal Pell of Sydney have memorably sung Holy Mass on Sunday. These "Princes of the Church" from the USA, Africa, Austria, and Australia reflect internationally what our parish represents in its own international make-up here in Manhattan.

Inevitably, some will ask what a cardinal is. Contrary to common understanding, a cardinal is not a kind of super-bishop. Any baptized layman can be a cardinal, and the same is true of election to the Papacy. There have been many laymen who have been cardinals, often nephews of the Pope. This was frequently done to ensure the service of someone the Pontiff could trust. It led to much corruption ("nepotism" comes from the Latin word for nephew) but it also benefited the Church greatly, as in the instance of St. Charles Borromeo, nephew of Pius IV.

Cardinals are not of the essence of the Church, and in fact they appeared only after the first centuries. By the fifth century there were at least 25 parishes in Rome of sufficient importance to have clergy designated as counselors to the Pope. These "cardinalatial" parishes (the word "cardinal" comes from the Latin "hinge," signifying their helpfulness to the Pope, as a hinge helps a door) were complimented by welfare centers where deacons administered aid to the poor and needy, and by virtue of their financial and administrative skills had important ranking with the Bishop of Rome. This especially developed under the Popes Evaristus and Fabio. By the end of the sixth century Pope Gregory the Great had 18 formally designated cardinal deacons. These cardinals assisted liturgically, financially, and in synodal legislation. The custom of designating cardinals as "Cardinal Bishop" or "Cardinal Priest" or "Cardinal Deacon" goes back to these old arrangements, and every cardinal, wherever his nation may be, is assigned a "titular church" in Rome as a sign of his relation to the Pope.

Pope John XXIII mandated that a cardinal also be a bishop, but some still are dispensed from this. The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar was not consecrated a bishop, although he died days before officially receiving the "Red Hat." In the nineteenth century John Henry Newman was not required to be a bishop, nor in recent times were René Laurentin or Avery Dulles, both of whom were named after their eightieth birthdays (the cutoff ages under present law for electing a Pope) in tribute to their scholarly services to the Church. Such cardinals are entitled to wear episcopal vesture and enjoy pontifical privileges in the Liturgy. Historically, the bishops of Milan, Naples, Sens, Magdeburg, and Cologne were almost automatically made cardinals as are many archbishops of major sees today, but one can be an archbishop of a great city without being made a cardinal for many years or ever.

The most solemn duty of a cardinal is to elect a successor to St. Peter in conclave, but any Pope can change the system at any time. Even a cardinal cannot infringe the rights of a bishop in his own diocese. The traditional red color of a cardinal's vesture is a sign of his willingness to die for the Pope and for Christ whose Vicar the Pope is. The laws of organization may change as they often have in the past. The international character of the College of Cardinals is a human sign of the supernatural expanse of the Catholic Church whose universality extends beyond human internationalism to a supernatural bond with the faithful departed in Purgatory and Heaven. Each time a cardinal visits us he is a living example of that unique historical reality.

Fr. George W. Rutler