Thirty-two new cardinals were appointed by Pope Pius XII on December 23, 1945, bringing the ancient Catholic College of Cardinals to its full traditional complement of seventy for the first time in history.
In the Catholic Church the College of Cardinals, the chief executive agency under the pope, constitutes a sort of papal cabinet, or privy council. It is the cardinals who elect the pope; one of their number governs the Church during any interregnum. It is through the cardinals (Latin, cardo—a hinge), serving in the twenty-one congregations, or bureaus, at Rome, that the machinery of the Church operates.
The cardinalate is rather more a function than a rank in the church. A Catholic clergyman's rank in his own home diocese has no direct relation to his rank as a cardinal. There are traditionally six cardinal bishops, fifty cardinal priests, and fourteen cardinal deacons, and each one takes his rank from the bishopric or church in the Roman area to which he is assigned as cardinal. Each of the present non-Italian cardinals in the college is either a cardinal priest or cardinal deacon, according as the pope has assigned him as honorary priest or deacon in one of the churches in the city of Rome.
One significance of the large block of appointments recently made is that the majority of the present cardinals are appointees of the present Pope, and may therefore be expected to carry out faithfully the policies of the man to whom they owe their appointment. This means the presentation to the Catholic Church over the world, and to the world itself, of a papal curia peculiarly united, and it guarantees a continuity of policy, should there come during these crucial years a change of ruler-ship in the Papacy.
The unusually international complexion of the college as now constituted has aroused much comment, for there are, for the first time in five centuries, more non-Italian than Italian cardinals, who are now only forty per cent of the whole body. More than a score of nations are represented in the college, including South American nations with five cardinals, and the United States with five. This is more from either area than have ever before served.
Among the American cardinals the outstanding personality is fifty-six-year-old Archbishop Francis J. Spellman, successor to Cardinal Hayes in the Roman Catholic province of New York. It was expected that Spellman would be appointed cardinal, not only in deference to the standing of his predecessor and to the millions of Catholics in his province, but for his own abilities. He has already assumed a more cosmopolitan place than had Hayes. Early in the war he became official representative of the church to Catholics in the armed services, and shortly before his elevation to the place of prince of the Church he completed a world tour of the Allied forces, making contacts not only with military and naval men but with the Pope and with statesmen and leaders of thought in many parts of the world.
The important place in the college already conceded to Cardinal Spellman is underscored by press comment, which speaks of him as a prolxtbility for the next secretary of state for Vatican City. The increasing influence of Americans in papal affairs is contemporary with the growing power of the Church in American affairs. Moreover, the thoughtful observer will contrast a vigilant, militant Papacy, functioning through a united and truly international headquarters staff, with a divided and hesitant Protestantism. He will sense the significance, in the light of history and prophecy, of a powerful Papacy in a confused, modern world.
