Pope names 22 new cardinals, including three North Americans

By Francis X. Rocca
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI named 22 new cardinals, including two from the United States, and announced a consistory for their formal induction into the College of Cardinals Feb. 18.
Among those named were Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York; Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien, pro-grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem who still is administering the Archdiocese of Baltimore; and Archbishop Thomas C. Collins of Toronto.
The pope announced the nominations to the faithful in St. Peter's Square at noon Jan. 6, before praying the Angelus.
Cardinal-designate O'Brien, who was in St. Peter's Square when his name was announced, said his priestly life has been "a surprise at every step. I thought being appointed archbishop of Baltimore would be the last surprise, but I was wrong."
He told Catholic News Service that the ministries he had been appointed to, and now his elevation to cardinal, were not things he could "anticipate, navigate or engineer. It's just a matter of being open and in the right place at the right time and good things happen."
In separate statements, the North American cardinals were quick to stress the collective rather than the personal nature of the honor.
"This is not about Timothy Dolan," the New York cardinal-designate said. "This is an honor from the Holy Father to the Archdiocese of New York. ... It's as if Pope Benedict is putting the red hat on top of the Empire State Building, or the Statue of Liberty, or on home plate at Yankee Stadium."
Cardinal-designate O'Brien said his nomination reflected the "zealous faith" of Catholics in Baltimore, and Cardinal-designate Collins attributed his elevation to the pope's "esteem for the role of Canada and of the Archdiocese of Toronto in the universal church."
The latest additions will bring the United States and Canada's share of the College of Cardinals to 22. The U.S., which is home to about 5.5 percent of the world's Catholics, will provide almost 10 percent of the 125 cardinals under the age of 80, who are the only cardinals eligible to vote in a conclave for a future pope.
By contrast, only one of those named, Cardinal-designate Joao Braz de Aviz, comes from the country with the most Catholics, Brazil. When the cardinals are inducted in February, only seven of the 22 cardinal electors from Latin America will have been appointed by Pope Benedict.
With his latest appointments, Pope Benedict will have named more than 50 percent of the current cardinal electors, with the rest having been named by Blessed John Paul II.
The pope's latest nominations included 16 Europeans, continuing a trend in his cardinal appointments since his election in 2005.
Seven of the new appointments are Italians, which will bring that nation's total of cardinal electors to 30 -- or 24 percent -- more than any other country.
None of the new cardinals are from Africa, the region where the church is experiencing its fastest growth, or Oceania.
Ten of the new cardinals are officials of the Roman Curia, whose offices by tradition often entail membership in the college. Pope Benedict, when he was known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, spent more than 23 years in the curia as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, though he had been elevated to cardinal in his previous role as archbishop of Munich-Freising, Germany.
Four of the new cardinals are already over the age of 80 and, therefore, ineligible to vote in a conclave. The pope uses such nominations to honor churchmen for their scholarship or other service to the church. Among the new so-called honorary cardinals is Cardinal-designate Karl Becker, a Jesuit and former theology professor at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University.
The Jesuits remain the religious order with the highest representation in the college, with eight cardinals, followed by the Salesians with six, including the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. There are seven Franciscan cardinals, divided between the Order of Friars Minor and the Capuchins, with the latter represented by Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston.
Here is the list of the new cardinals:
-- Italian Archbishop Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, 65.
-- Portuguese Archbishop Manuel Monteiro de Castro, major penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary, 73.
-- Spanish Archbishop Santos Abril Castello, archpriest of Basilica of St. Mary Major, 76.
-- Italian Archbishop Antonio Maria Veglio, president Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers, who turns 74 Feb. 3.
-- Italian Archbishop Giuseppe Bertello, president of the commission governing Vatican City State, 69.
-- Italian Archbishop Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Interpreting Legislative Texts, 73.
-- Brazilian Archbishop Joao Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, 64.
-- U.S. Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien, grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem, 72.
-- Italian Archbishop Domenico Calcagno, president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, who turns 69 Feb. 3.
- Italian Archbishop Giuseppe Versaldi, president of Prefecture of the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, 68.
-- Indian Archbishop George Alencherry of Ernakulam-Angamaly, major archbishop of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, 66.
-- Canadian Archbishop Thomas C. Collins of Toronto, who will be 65 Jan. 16.
-- Czech Archbishop Dominik Duka of Prague, 68.
-- Dutch Archbishop Willem J. Eijk of Utrecht, 58.
-- Italian Archbishop Giuseppe Betori of Florence, 64.
-- U.S. Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who will turn 62 Feb. 6.
-- German Archbishop Rainer Maria Woelki of Berlin, 55.
-- Chinese Bishop John Tong Hon of Hong Kong, 72.
-- Romanian Archbishop Lucian Muresan of Fagaras and Alba Iulia, major archbishop of the Romanian Catholic Church, 80.
-- Belgian Father Julien Ries, expert on history of religions, 91.
-- Maltese Augustinian Father Prosper Grech, biblical scholar, 86.
-- German Jesuit Father Karl Josef Becker, retired professor of dogmatic theology, 83.
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Editors: Contributing to this story was Cindy Wooden.

New York prelate a vigorous defender and booster of the faith
By Mark Pattison
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who was appointed Jan. 6 to the College of Cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI, has used his pulpit, be it in New York or Milwaukee, to promote and defend the Catholic faith.
Ordained to the priesthood in 1976, Cardinal-designate Dolan was secretary to the apostolic nunciature in Washington for five years before serving as rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome. In 2001, then-Msgr. Dolan was ordained to the episcopate when he was appointed auxiliary bishop in his native St. Louis. One year and five days later, he was appointed archbishop of Milwaukee.
He was one of 10 U.S. bishops appointed by the Vatican to be catechetical leaders during the 2005 World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany. He reprised the role in 2011 in Madrid, telling pilgrims to admit their faith is weak and shaky. "Something tells me that's why we're (at World Youth Day)," he said. "We want to be with a million other young people from around the world who love their faith and are trying to make it strong."
In a 2007 lecture at North American College, Cardinal-designate Dolan said Catholics need solid preaching about Jesus, the cross and the church, and not "feel-good" spiritual advice that demands no sacrifice. Preaching well, he added, means challenging people's complacency and, like Christ, occasionally "shaking things up."
In 2007, Cardinal-designate Dolan, now 61, was appointed to the board of directors of Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops' international aid agency. He became chairman of the board by the end of that year and served in that capacity for three years. He stepped down from the post reluctantly when his election as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops required it.
He was a member of the USCCB Committee on Budget and Finance and the Subcommittee on the Church in Africa and a consultant to the Committee on International Justice and Peace.
As a panelist for a 2004 EWTN-sponsored "town hall" meeting, Cardinal-designate Dolan said the clergy sex abuse crisis was "a societal problem, not a Catholic problem." At the time, he was chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry.
The Milwaukee Archdiocese in 2006 reached an out-of-court, $16.9 million settlement with victims of clerical sexual abuse. Then-Archbishop Dolan said the payout would mean "sacrifices in operations and ministries" but going to trial could have been worse in terms of archdiocesan financial liability, "to say nothing about the bad PR." The archdiocese in 2011 filed for bankruptcy protection due to unresolved abuse claims, the largest U.S. diocese to have done so.
Cardinal-designate Dolan was appointed to the Archdiocese of New York in 2009 to succeed Cardinal Edward M. Egan, who retired. When cardinals were previously named in October 2010, Cardinal Egan was not yet 80 years old, and Vatican custom has been to avoid having two voting-age cardinals from the same diocese. Cardinal Egan turns 80 April 2.
Shortly after becoming archbishop, Cardinal-designate Dolan suggested his style would be different, but not the substance. "The 'what' won't change, but the 'how' might," he said. "Our goal is to change our lives to be in conformity with Jesus and his church and not to change the teachings of Jesus and the church to be in conformity with what we want."
In his first pastoral letter as archbishop, Cardinal-designate Dolan called on Catholics to "keep the Lord's day holy" and reminded them that it is in receiving the Eucharist on Sunday that they sustain their faith.
In 2009, he was appointed the U.S. moderator of Jewish affairs for the U.S. bishops.
In a break with precedent, in 2010, Cardinal-designate Dolan won election as president of the U.S. bishops. It was the first time in the history of the bishops' conference that a sitting vice president who was eligible for the presidency did not win the election.
In his first presidential address, Cardinal-designate Dolan told his fellow bishops in November 2011, "Love for Jesus and his church must be the passion of our lives." Describing the church as a spiritual family that "to use the talk show vocabulary ... has some 'dysfunction,'" he said the bishops' "most pressing pastoral challenge today is to reclaim that truth, to restore the luster, the credibility, the beauty of the church."
But he cited "chilling statistics we cannot ignore" that "fewer and fewer of our beloved people -- to say nothing about those outside the household of the faith -- are convinced that Jesus and his church are one." As a result, he added, "they drift from her, get mad at the church, grow lax, join another or just give it all up. If this does not cause us pastors to shudder, I do not know what will."
One year to the day before he was named a cardinal, the New York archbishop reiterated the pledge of his predecessors to help any pregnant woman in need. "Through Catholic Charities, adoption services, lobbying on behalf of pregnant women, mothers and infants, support of life-giving alternatives, health care and education of youth for healthy, responsible, virtuous sexual behavior, we've done our best to keep that promise and these haunting statistics only prod us to keep at it," he said.
During a December address at the University of Notre Dame, he called the dignity of the human person "a primary doctrine" of the Catholic Church, adding that it must prompt Catholics "to treat ourselves and others only with respect, love, honor and care." That doctrine also means people must not be identified "with our urges, our flaws, our status, our possessions, our utility," but each seen as "a child of God, his creation, modeled in his own image, destined for eternity," he said.
In 2011, he was named a member of the new Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization. On Dec. 29, just a week before his appointment to the College of Cardinals, he was appointed by Pope Benedict to help advise the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

New US-born cardinal used to new and varied assignments
By Mark Pattison
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The priestly ministry of Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien, named a cardinal Jan. 6 by Pope Benedict XVI, has been marked by frequent assignments, so that he rarely stays in one place very long. And even when he is ensconced somewhere for a while, he gets to moving.
Appointed last August as pro-grand master of the Equestrian Order (Knights) of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem, based in Rome, he is serving simultaneously in his previous post as archbishop of Baltimore until a successor is named.
Born April 8, 1939, in New York, Edwin Frederick O'Brien and his family were members of Our Lady of Solace Parish in the Bronx. He attended St. Joseph's Seminary outside New York, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1961 and master's degrees in 1964 and 1965. In 1965, he was ordained to the priesthood, setting off a string of appointments.
For his first five years as a priest, he was a civilian chaplain at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. He became an Army chaplain in 1970 and over the next three years rose to the rank of captain while ministering to the 82nd Airborne.
He served a tour of duty in Vietnam from 1971 to 1972 with the 173rd Airborne Brigade and then 1st Cavalry Brigade. From a base of operations in the middle of a jungle, he and a Protestant minister flew by helicopter to defensive outposts, where they would provide for the spiritual needs of soldiers.
From 1973 to 1976, he studied at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, earning a doctorate in theology. On his return to New York, he was named archdiocesan vice chancellor and assistant pastor of St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Appointed archdiocesan director of communications in 1981, he helped launch Catholic New York, the archdiocesan newspaper. Two years later, he was named secretary to New York Cardinal Terence Cooke and later to Cardinal John J. O'Connor, his successor in New York.
Then-Msgr. O'Brien was made rector of St. Joseph's Seminary in 1985 and rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome in 1989. On his return to New York in 1994, he was again made rector of St. Joseph's.
He was named an auxiliary bishop of New York Feb. 6, 1996, and ordained a bishop March 25. He was named coadjutor archbishop of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services in April 1997. He took up the post in May and became head of the archdiocese in August when Archbishop Joseph T. Dimino resigned for health reasons. It was the cardinal-designate's longest single appointment, but he made a point of getting out of the office to visit chaplains at bases, including a two-month tour in 2007.
As military archbishop, he had to deal with dwindling numbers of Catholic chaplains. In 2003, there were 367 chaplains for 1.5 million Catholics in all branches of the military.
In 2005-06, Cardinal-designate O'Brien served as the papally appointed coordinator for the visitation of U.S. seminaries and houses of priestly formation.
As the visitation began, he said there was no room in seminaries for men with strong homosexual inclinations even if they have been celibate for a decade or more. "I think anyone who has engaged in homosexual activity, or has strong homosexual inclinations, would be best not to apply to a seminary and not to be accepted into a seminary," he said, later adding that he was speaking for himself based on his prior stints as a seminary rector, not for the U.S. bishops or the Vatican
He got to dedicate a new headquarters building for the military archdiocese in September 2007, mere days before his installation as archbishop of Baltimore.
But about four years later, he was on his way to Rome to head the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem, dedicated to supporting the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and to responding to the needs of Catholics in the Holy Land. Its work covers Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Cyprus. The Knights fund seminaries, schools, hospitals and social centers throughout the patriarchate.
Cardinal-designate O'Brien succeeded another U.S. prelate, the late Cardinal John P. Foley, in the post.
In 2009, as Baltimore archbishop, he told an audience of 500 people gathered for a military-sponsored symposium in Omaha, Neb., that the abolition of nuclear weapons was an issue of "fundamental moral values that should unite people across national and ideological boundaries."
The following year, in Paris, he said the path to the elimination of nuclear weapons will be "long and treacherous," but humanity "must walk this path with both care and courage in order to build a future free of the nuclear threat."
Last summer, he had an exchange of letters urging Maryland Gov. Martin J. O'Malley, a Catholic, not to sponsor legislation legalizing same-sex marriage. "As advocates for the truths we are compelled to uphold," the future cardinal wrote, "we speak with equal intensity and urgency in opposition to your promoting a goal that so deeply conflicts with your faith, not to mention the best interests of our society."