The Achievement by Pope Francis That Few Are Pointing Out
It's a big one.
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Y’all probably and understandably missed it in the past week of chaotic news cycles, but something especially important happened in Rome and I’m not seeing it get enough attention.
On Friday, Pope Francis presided over his tenth consistory, which is a fancy word for when a pope formally meets with members of the College of Cardinals, something that’s practically an annual tradition for the current pontiff during his tenure (the sole exception being 2021).
The primary item on the agenda was the creation of 21 new cardinals, twenty of which are cardinal electors, or cardinals who are eligible to vote during the next papal conclave.
Although there are 253 members of the College of Cardinals, only 140 of them (as of last week) are currently eligible to vote because in 1970, Pope Paul VI decreed that cardinals lose their eligibility upon their 80th birthday.
(As a side note: that does not mean that cardinals 80 and older cannot be elected pope despite being ineligible to vote. In fact, any baptized Catholic male can be elected Pope, regardless of age or experience. In practice, the College of Cardinals are guaranteed to elect one of their own and the oldest pope elected in modern times was 78).
Following last week’s consistory, 110 of the current 140 cardinal electors have been appointed by Pope Francis, a whopping 79 percent of the body, far exceeding the influence of his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI (58 percent).
By the end of next year, fifteen more cardinal electors will reach 80 and lose their voting eligibility, dropping the total to 125 and further increasing the nominal influence of Pope Francis (88 percent).
Some of you sharp observers of papal conclaves will point out that the stated maximum of cardinal electors is 120, per another order by Pope Paul VI in 1975, but that limit is theoretical. In fact, Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis all exceeded that total for brief periods of time.
Part of the purpose of a consistory is to proactively adjust for cardinal electors who are likely to lose eligibility in the near future and thus, beefing up that number with the good faith goal of maintaining a balance toward that theoretical limit of 120.
If we reach the end of 2026 without a papal conclave (I hope that’s worded respectfully), the total drops to 118 cardinal electors and Pope Francis will have appointed 93 percent of them.
Of course, in that scenario, it’s likely he’ll have created more cardinals at future consistories. So, if we conservatively estimate 10 new cardinals are created by the end of 2026, that would bring Pope Francis up to 94 percent.
Okay, so, why does any of this matter?
Because Pope Francis is undeniably shifting the direction of the Church by ensuring his successor and his successor’s successor will almost certainly be aligned with his theological framework.
The election of a new pope requires a two-thirds majority from cardinal electors, which are almost always lifetime appointments, and should Pope Francis still be serving as the Bishop of Rome at the end of 2026, his cardinal electors will be enormously influential for the next few papal conclaves, maybe several, likely 30 years or more of Francis Electors.
For instance, take Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, widely considered papabile, a term for cardinals who are considered likely leading candidates entering a papal conclave.
It’s fair to say he’s the first among papabile at this point, the leading contender for the next papacy.
Cardinal Tagle is universally respected in the Church, even by some who are not exactly fond of Pope Francis, who is considered a mentor to Tagle, who, in fact, is sometimes dubbed “the Asian Francis.”
Since 2022, Cardinal Tagle has been serving as the Pro-Prefect for the Section of Evangelization of Dicastery of Evangelization, which, in a nutshell, is one of the most important roles in the Catholic Church, arguably only exceeded in influence by the Pope himself.
He’s tasked with leading efforts to expand the Church — put more bluntly: the business of saving souls and shaping the cultural outreach that does so, placing him in the driver’s seat for the Church’s direction.
Tagle has been a consistent champion of the impoverished throughout his career, critical of harsh rhetoric against LGBTQ people, and a theological advocate—at the least by the standards of a sitting cardinal—for divorced and remarried Catholics.
This may not seem all that impressive to folks who are understandably skeptical and wary of the social conservatism of Catholic Church leadership. Indeed, Cardinal Tagle, like Pope Francis, is anti-abortion, for example. But it’s more than enough to deem him a leader of the Church’s progressive wing.
And he’s only 67 — imagine if Pope Francis were succeeded by Cardinal Tagle, who was then succeeded by another progressive pope. We could be looking at decades of a progressive shift in the Church’s theological stances, undergirded by a College of Cardinals solely appointed by those progressive popes.
I find it enormously hopeful. There are 1.28 billion Catholics in the world and 67 countries that are majority-Catholic.
If this flock is being led by forward-thinking leaders, that’s a good thing for all of us.
This reads like an article in America Media (of which I am also a subscriber). Not necessarily in conclusion but in detail; your knowledge of the RC hierarchy and the mathematics is both impressive and so informative.
Admittedly I am a lapsed practitioner but I appreciate your perspective on Francis and the importance of his impact on generations to come.
Not unlike watching our judiciary appts. play out these past years...
Appreciate you, Charlotte
I understand your point and yes, it would help if the Catholic Church were more progressive, but this is a centuries old organization that is steeped in misogyny. I grew up in the Church, went to Catholic grade school and high school. I left the Church after school because I was no longer forced to go to Mass and I will not belong to any organization that treats women as inferior, i.e., not as good as men. However, I do believe that people should grow up with some sort organized teaching of moral and ethical guidelines so I had my daughter baptized, I went to Mass with her on Sundays before her CCD class (if you don't go to a Catholic school you have to go to CCD classes for religious education), went through her First Confession and First Communion, and was taking her to her classes for her Confirmation. My daughter is a lesbian, and one day, she came out of her CCD class and was angry and hurt because of the things her CCD teacher said about gays. I told her that she didn't have to put up with that and she said that she wasn't going back, which was fine with me. Like any organization, even though the current Pope is more rational about the gay community it is still a male-only organization that's run by people who who may, or may not be more rational, and there's no way to dismiss the horrendous history of pedophilia (my parish priest tried to groom me when I was around 13 but I knew enough to stay away from him). I've read quite a few articles lately about how more males are turning to religion, including the Catholic Church, mainly because they realize that organized religion is predominately male oriented and dominated organizations. Look at JD Vance, for example. These types of men love it because it feeds into their misogyny. I believe that some day women will be seen as equal to men, but not in my lifetime, and not anytime soon.