Pope Benedict's "October Surprise": Six new Red Hats for November Consistory

From Whispers in the Loggia:

The new cardinals to be created in consistory on Nov. 24 (just one month's warning, eh?) will be:

1. Archbishop James Harvey, 63, the Milwaukee-born prefect of the Papal Household (who, Benedict said today, he will soon name as archpriest of the Basilica of St Paul's Outside the Walls);
2. Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai, 72, the Lebanon-based head of the worldwide, 5 million-member Maronite church;
3. Major Archbishop Basilios Cleemis, 53, head of India's Syro-Malankara church – the first hierarch from the 600,000-member community to receive the red hat (and, by two years, set to become the youngest cardinal);
4. Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja (Nigeria), 68
5. Archbishop Ruben Salazar Gomez of Bogotá, 70
6. Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle of Manila, 55; head of Asia's largest diocese

Notice that none of them are Italians (or even European), 2 represent non-Roman-rite groups, and that two are in their mid-50's.

al-Rai is no surprise. The last four Maronite patriarchs have also been cardinals. It's like an ethnically-alotted seat on the Supreme Court.

Ditto Tagle. The bishop of Manila gets to be cardinal. It's where we got the awesomely named Cardinal Sin.

I'm amazed the Syro-Malankara's have never had a cardinal. That's quite nice. And, put simply, he sounds like a neat guy.

I only know Onaiyekan. He came to South Sudan in January 2011 to help monitor the referendum.

I don't suppose you can comment on him?

Seemed like a good bloke, and he certainly coped OK with South Sudan. I'm told that he's a bit of a stickler for protocol back home, but I can't say I noticed that particularly when I was with him, and he seemed pretty relaxed.

From what I'm seeing, it seems that some Americans feel gipped that Chaput didn't get a nod this time around. Do you think he'll be up for one next year?

Palmo noted that this brings the number of voting members in the College back to the statutory limit of 120, though JPII had a habit of derogating that to include up to 135 -- but that 11 of those will hit the age limit next year, opening up more spots. I suppose that might be a separate discussion: before the consistory earlier this year (which added 24, I believe, including Dolan), the College had started to get pretty thin, especially in comparison to the palmy days of JPII's expanded college. Is keeping the number closer to 100 rather than ballooning over the 120 limit a good thing?

>6 nathanielcampbell:

Meh. Between, say, 75 and 150 is about the same organizationally. It's not the Senate of the early 1800s and it's not a Soviet legislature. You can't have a fully participatory "meeting" with numbers that large, but it's small enough to allow interactions between people. The principle good of restricting the total it is in preventing "stacking" the college, but, well, time and modern medicine has taken care of that.

Interesting blog post.

"Why name new cardinals now? The Pope's mysterious announcement"
http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=942

Pope Benedict XVI to create six 'global' cardinals (BBC)

Vatican consistory creating six cardinals packs global punch (NCR)