CARDINALS. — Cardinals are the highest collaborators and advisors of the Pope in the governance of the universal Church.
The body of cardinals is called the Sacred College, which is often considered a kind of senate of the Church (cf. can. 230) and is a juridical person; however, it should be noted that cardinals have never had, in relation to the Pope, deliberative powers, but only consultative ones. Their decisions can never have force against the sovereign will, neither in the sense of being able to provoke a measure not desired by the Pontiff, nor in the sense of being able to prevent one that he desires.
I. — Just as other bishops, the Roman Pontiff was assisted in the governance of the diocese by the group of presbyters (presbyterium), who aided him and, when necessary, even substituted for him in liturgical ministry, preaching, and governance. To them were added the seven deacons, also entrusted with liturgical duties but primarily assigned to the administration of temporal affairs. With regard to the exercise of his universal or regional primacy, at least from the 3rd century, the Pope was assisted by bishops gathered in councils, whether periodic or extraordinary according to circumstances and the gravity of the cases at hand. However, the seven bishops whose dioceses surrounded the Roman diocese without leaving their sees (the suburbicarian sees), at least from the 5th century, began to render regular liturgical and weekly service in the papal cathedral, the Lateran Basilica of the Redeemer; that is, they were incardinated there. Likewise, the priests assigned to the 25 titular churches (later 28) established within the city of Rome were entrusted with liturgical and weekly service in the major basilicas of St. Mary Major, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Lawrence, without leaving their titular churches; in this way, they were incardinated to them. Thus, the College of the Seven Deacons was entrusted with the seven ecclesiastical regions into which Pope Fabian (d. 251) had already divided the city with regard to their duties of charitable assistance.
However, while the seven suburbicarian bishops are called cardinals from the 8th century, it was only toward the end of the 10th century that titular priests regularly began to add the title of cardinal to the name of their titular church. Then, in the 11th century, beginning with St. Leo IX, as popes gradually introduced foreign elements into the clergy of Rome and the work of ecclesiastical reform was energetically advanced throughout Europe, cardinals began to be less tied to their original duty of liturgical and pastoral service in the churches of Rome and more directly to serve as the Pope’s collaborators in the governance of the universal Church. From this point onward, the seven deacons known as palatine, to whom twelve others called regional deacons had recently been added (because there were now twelve political-administrative regions of the Urbe—though in reality there were eventually eighteen, not nineteen), were also included among the cardinals and began to bear this title. They went further: to make themselves entirely like their colleagues, they took the title of one of the deaconries founded in the city during the 7th and 8th centuries to provide public assistance and which were in some way under their supervision. With this final step, the College of Cardinals assumed the form it still retains today; for even the reform later introduced by Sixtus V did not alter its essential constitution.
II. — As a consequence of this historical development, the Sacred College is today divided into three classes, called orders. Indeed, the cardinals, whose total number (the full complement of the Sacred College) has been fixed since the time of Sixtus V (Apostolic Constitution *Postquam*, 3 Dec. 1586) at no more than seventy (before Sixtus V there was no fixed number, and in ancient times cardinals were generally fewer in number, even falling to fewer than twenty during the 13th century), are divided into: cardinals of the order of bishops (six), who are the bishops of the suburbicarian dioceses, namely, Albano, Frascati, Palestrina, Porto and Santa Rufina, Sabina and Poggio Mirteto, Velletri and Ostia (the latter always united with the see of which the cardinal dean—the senior among the cardinal bishops—is bishop); cardinals of the order of priests (fifty), who are titulars of ancient Roman churches (cardinalatial titles); and cardinals of the order of deacons (fourteen), who are titulars of other churches in Rome, namely, cardinalatial deaconries (can. 231). In their titular church or deaconry, a cardinal possesses very extensive powers (can. 240, §§ 2–3).
Despite the names of the three orders mentioned above, today all cardinals are at least priests (can. 232, § 1); cardinals of the order of bishops, and for the most part also those of the order of priests, are bishops.
III. — The appointment of cardinals is made freely by the Pope through the publication of their names in a secret consistory (v. CONSISTORY). The requirements set forth in can. 232, § 2 are merely directive in value, though they are always observed except in exceptional cases. Sometimes the Pontiff announces in consistory the appointment of one or more cardinals without revealing their names, which are then published in a subsequent consistory; such cardinals (called cardinals reserved *in pectore*) acquire seniority for precedence purposes as if they had been appointed in the consistory in which they were reserved *in pectore*, though all other effects of the appointment take effect only from the day on which it is published (can. 233).
At the time of appointment, each cardinal is assigned either to the order of priests or to that of deacons, receiving respectively a titular church or a deaconry. By option, made in secret consistory and approved by the Supreme Pontiff, they may transfer from one titular church to another that is vacant, or from one deaconry to another that is vacant; cardinal deacons, after ten years from the publication of their appointment, may also, by option as above, transfer to the order of priests if there are available positions. Transfer to the order of bishops always occurs by option on the part of cardinals of the order of priests, according to seniority (can. 236).
IV. — At the head of the Sacred College is the cardinal dean, *primus inter pares*, who is the one who has been longest in the order of bishops (can. 237). He enjoys various prerogatives: for example, it is he who asks an elected Pontiff whether he wishes to accept; and it is his office to ordain and consecrate the Pope, should the elected not be a priest or bishop.
The senior cardinal of the order of deacons has the privilege of announcing to the people the election of the new Pope and of crowning him.
The goods of the Sacred College are administered by the cardinal camerlengo of the Sacred College (not to be confused with the cardinal camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church), appointed by the Pope in secret consistory from among the cardinals residing in Rome. The functions of secretary of the Sacred College are exercised by the assessor of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation.
V. — The participation of cardinals in the governance of the universal Church takes place in various ways (v. also CONSISTORY).
Many of them, residing in Rome (curial cardinals), are members of one or more of the Sacred Congregations, which, like ministries, direct major branches of ecclesiastical organization and life, always subordinate to the Pope.
Other cardinals are placed at the head of or serve on organs of the Holy See distinct from the Sacred Congregations, such as the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Sacred Penitentiary, the Secretariat of State, the Apostolic Chancery, the Apostolic Camera, and many pontifical commissions. It may be said that
The central bodies of the Church (i.e., those that constitute the Roman Curia) are the only ones of which no cardinal is a member is the Tribunal of the Sacred Roman Rota.
Moreover, the Sacred College, as such, is entrusted with the government of the Church and of the State of the Vatican City, during the vacancy of the Holy See, but only with regard to urgent matters or those of ordinary administration. It is exclusively the cardinals who, since the 11th century, elect the Supreme Pontiff by a two-thirds majority plus one, in a secret meeting called a conclave (cf. const. *Vacantis Apostolicae*, 8 Dec. 1945). By a decision of Urban VIII (10 June 1630), it is the cardinals who bear the title of *Eminence*.
VI. — However, the role that cardinals play in the government of the universal Church does not prevent them from having other duties. Thus, those of the order of bishops are also bishops of their own dioceses, although, unlike other bishops, they mostly reside in Rome and normally govern their dioceses through an auxiliary or suffragan bishop.
Some of those of the order of priests are also bishops of important dioceses; indeed, there are some dioceses whose bishop is traditionally invested with the dignity of cardinal; such are, for example: Turin, Milan, Venice, Florence, Naples, Palermo, and outside Italy: Paris, Westminster, Toledo, Lisbon, Monaco, Cologne, Strigonia, New York. Furthermore, one of the cardinal-priests, the cardinal-vicar, is the pope’s vicar for the government of the diocese of Rome. Many cardinals also hold the office of “protectors” of various religious Orders and Congregations, especially female ones.
VII. — Cardinals enjoy various privileges, especially honorary and liturgical ones, including the right of precedence over every other ecclesiastical dignitary; and they also have broad faculties regarding Confession, the conferral of Confirmation and minor Orders, the granting of indulgences, and in various other matters (cf. can. 239).
C. VICARIO. — It is the cardinal invested with episcopal character who represents the pope and acts in his name in the government of the diocese of Rome with ordinary jurisdiction. However, it was only after the 12th century that the figure of this cooperator and substitute of the pontiff was defined. Sometimes bishops of the suburbicarian sees, sometimes abbots, sometimes bishops and even cardinals were appointed as cardinal-vicar. Yet it was only Paul IV in 1558 who established that the office of cardinal-vicar should belong for life to only one of the cardinals.
The duties of the cardinal-vicar are those of a bishop in his diocese. Save for the stricter and more immediate subjection to the Supreme Pontiff and the observance of the numerous exemptions in force in Rome more than elsewhere ( titular churches, pontifical jurisdictions, etc.), he enjoys the full and free exercise of the power of order; he is the ordinary judge of Rome and its district, and does not cease in his office during the vacancy of the Apostolic See.
His Curia organ is the Vicariate, which, since the apostolic constitution *Etsi nos* of Pius X of 19 Jan. 1912, is divided into four offices: the first for divine worship and apostolic visitation, the second for the discipline of the clergy and Christian people, the third for judicial acts, the fourth for the administration of property; at the head of the first and second offices are two secretaries, the first of whom is the general secretary of the Vicariate, the second being deputed to religious institutes and schools; at the head of the third office (judicial acts) is the official who is currently (after the *motu proprio* *Qua cura* of 8 Dec. 1938) also head of the Regional Tribunal for marriage nullity cases and thus handles in first instance the cases of all Latium and in appeal those of the Campanian and Sardinian regions; finally, the administration is directed by an economo. Recently, with the apostolic constitution *In Lateranensi Pacto*, 20 May 1929, the Vatican City was removed from the jurisdiction of the Vicariate.
The cardinal-vicar is, by necessity, almost always also president of the “Pontifical Work for the Preservation of the Faith” and for the provision of new churches in Rome, established by Pius XI with the *motu proprio* *In allocutione* of 5 Aug. 1930; he is also Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Lateran Athenaeum, president of the Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology, etc. As cardinal-vicar, he has an audience with the pope twice a month. Under him, with ordinary vicarious jurisdiction, is monsignor vice-gerente.