CARDINALE. – Cardinals are the pope’s highest collaborators and advisers in the government of the universal Church.
The body of cardinals is called the Sacred College, which is often regarded as a kind of senate of the Church (cf. can. 230) and is a juridical person; but it should be noted that, in relation to the pope, cardinals have never possessed deliberative powers, but only consultative ones, since their decisions can never have force against the sovereign will, either in the sense of bringing about a measure not desired by the pontiff, or in the sense of preventing one desired by him.
I. – Like other bishops, the Roman pontiff was assisted in the government of his diocese by the group of presbyters (presbyterium), who aided him and, when necessary, also replaced him in the liturgical ministry, in preaching, and in government. To them were added the seven deacons, who were likewise entrusted with liturgical duties, but were chiefly concerned with administering temporal interests. As regards the exercise of his universal or regional primacy, at least from the third century onward, the pope was assisted by bishops assembled in councils, periodic or extraordinary according to the circumstances and the gravity of the cases that arose. However, the seven bishops whose dioceses surrounded the Roman diocese on every side, without leaving their sees (the suburbicarian sees), at least from the fifth century onward began to perform regular weekly liturgical service in the papal cathedral, the Lateran Basilica of the Redeemer; that is, they were incardinated in II. Likewise, the priests presiding over the 25 tituli (later 28) established within the City were entrusted with weekly liturgical service in the major basilicas of S. Maria Maggiore, S. Pietro, S. Paolo, and S. Lorenzo, without leaving their titulus; they were thus incardinated in those basilicas. In this way, the College of the seven deacons was entrusted with the seven ecclesiastical regions into which Pope Fabian (d. in 251) is said to have divided the city for the purpose of carrying out their charitable assistance duties.
Yet while the seven suburbicarian bishops were called cardinals from the eighth century onward, it was only toward the end of the tenth century that the titular priests regularly added the designation cardinal to the name of their titulus. When, in the eleventh century, beginning with S. Leone IX, the popes gradually introduced foreign elements into the clergy of Rome, and the work of ecclesiastical reform was vigorously advanced throughout Europe, the cardinals also began to be less closely tied to their original task of liturgical and pastoral service in the churches of Rome and increasingly became the pope’s direct coadjutors in the government of the universal Church. From this point onward, the seven deacons called palatine, to whom 12 others, called regionary, had recently been added because there were by then twelve political-administrative regions of the City (in reality, they eventually numbered 18 in all, not 19), were also included among the cardinals and began to bear this title. They went even further: in order to become entirely like their colleagues, they took the title of one of the deaconries that had been founded in the city during the seventh and eighth centuries to provide public assistance and were in some way under their supervision. With this final step, the College of Cardinals assumed the form it still retains, since not even the reform later introduced by Sisto V altered its essential constitution.
II. – As a consequence of this historical development, even today the Sacred College is divided into three classes, called orders. Indeed, the cardinals, whose total number (the full complement of the Sacred College) has, since the time of Sisto V (constitution Postquam, 3 Dec. 1586), been fixed at no more than seventy (before Sisto V there was no established number, and in ancient times the cardinals generally numbered fewer, so that during the thirteenth century their number fell even below twenty), are divided into: cardinals of the episcopal order (six), who are the bishops of the suburbicarian dioceses, namely Albano, Frascati, Palestrina, Porto and S. Rufina, Sabina and Poggio Mirteto, Velletri, and Ostia (the last always united with the see of which the cardinal dean is bishop, that is, the oldest among
the c. bishops); c. of the order of priests (fifty), holders of ancient Roman churches (cardinalatial titular churches); c. of the order of deacons (fourteen), holders of other churches in Rome, namely cardinalatial diaconiae (can. 231). In his titular church or diaconia, the c. has very extensive powers (can. 240, §§ 2–3).
Nevertheless, despite the names of the three aforementioned orders, all c. are currently at least priests (can. 232, § 1); the c. 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 the secret consistory (v. CONCISTORO): the requirements established in can. 232, § 2 have a purely directive force, although they are always observed, except in exceptional cases. At times the pontiff announces in consistory the appointment of one or more cardinals without revealing the name, which will then be published in one of the subsequent consistories: such cardinals (who are called riservati in pectore) acquire seniority, for purposes of precedence, as though they had been appointed in the consistory in which they were riservati in pectore, although all the other effects of the appointment arise 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 title or a deaconry. By option, made in the secret consistory and approved by the Supreme Pontiff, they may pass from one title to another that is vacant, or from one vacant deaconry to another; after ten years from the publication of the appointment, cardinal deacons may also, by an option made as above, pass to the order of priests, provided that places are available.
Admission to the order of bishops always takes place 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 belonged to the order of bishops for the longest time (can. 237); he has various prerogatives: for example, he is the one who asks the person elected pontiff whether or not he wishes to accept; and it falls to him to ordain and consecrate the pope if the person elected is not a priest or bishop.
The senior-most of the cardinals of the order of deacons has the privilege of announcing the election of the new Pope to the people and of crowning him.
The property of the Sacred College is 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 Congregation of the Council.
V. - The participation of the cardinals in the government of the universal Church takes place in various ways (v. CONCISTORO).
Many of them, residing in Rome (Curial cardinals), belong to one or more of the Sacred Congregations, which, as a kind of Ministries, under the Pope’s authority, direct major branches of ecclesiastical organization and life.
Other cardinals preside over or belong to organs of the Holy See other than the Sacred Congregations: such as, for example, 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 of all the central organs of the Church (that is, those constituting the Roman Curia), the only one of which no cardinal is a member is the Tribunal of the Sacred Roman Rota.
Furthermore, during the vacancy of the Holy See, the government of the Church and of the State of Vatican City, limited, however, to urgent affairs or those of ordinary administration, is entrusted to the Sacred College as such. And it is exclusively the cardinals who, since the eleventh century, elect the Supreme Pontiff by a majority of two-thirds plus one, in a secret assembly called the conclave (cf. const. Vacantis Apostolicae, of 8 Dec. 1945). By decision of Urban VIII (10 June 1630), cardinals are entitled to the title of Eminence.
VI. - The part that the cardinals have in the government of the universal Church does not, however, prevent them from having other functions as well. Thus those of the order of bishops are also bishops of their own dioceses, although, unlike other bishops, they reside for the most part in Rome and normally govern their dioceses through an auxiliary or suffragan bishop.
Some of those of the order of priests are likewise bishops of important dioceses; indeed, there are certain 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, Munich, Cologne, Esztergom, New York. Moreover, one of the cardinal priests, the cardinal vicar, is the pope’s vicar for the government of the diocese of Rome. And many cardinals hold the office of “protectors” of various religious Orders and Congregations, especially women’s.
VII. - The c. enjoy various privileges, especially honorary and liturgical ones, including the right of precedence over every other ecclesiastical dignitary; in addition, they have broad faculties concerning Confession, the conferral of Confirmation and minor Orders, the granting of indulgences, and various other matters (cf. can. 239).
The duties of the c. vicario are those of a bishop in his own diocese. Apart from his closer and more immediate subjection to the supreme pontiff and his respect for the frequent exemptions prevailing in Rome more than elsewhere (titular churches, papal 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 to hold office during the vacancy of the Apostolic S. See.
His Curial organ is the vicariate, which, by the apostolic constitution Etsi nos of Pius X of 1 January 1912, is divided into four offices: the first for divine worship and the apostolic visitation, the second for the discipline of the clergy and the Christian people, the third for judicial acts, and the fourth for the administration of property. At the head of the first and second offices are two secretaries, the first of whom is secretary-general of the vicariate, while the second is assigned to religious institutes and schools:
at the head of the third office (judicial acts) is the official, who at present (following the motu proprio Qua cura of 8 December 1938) is also head of the regional tribunal for cases of matrimonial nullity and therefore handles at first instance the cases of the whole of Lazio and on appeal those of the Campania and Sardinian regions. Finally, the administration is directed by an economus. Recently, by the apostolic constitution In Lateranensi Pacto of 20 May 1929, Vatican City was withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the vicariate. The c. vicario is, by the force of circumstances, 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 August 1930. He is also grand chancellor of the Pontifical Lateran Athenaeum, president of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology, etc. As c. vicario, he has an audience with the pope twice a month. Under him, with ordinary vicarious jurisdiction, is Msgr. vice-gerente.