Bertone replies to NCR analysis on membership of College of Cardinals [Allen]

[Catholic_Opinion]

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome
Responding to accounts in the National Catholic Reporter and elsewhere suggesting that the College of Cardinals is top-heavy with Europeans and North Americans, the Vatican’s Secretary of State said today that the make-up of the college is actually broadly proportionate to the distribution of priests and bishops in the world.
Moreover, Italian Cardinal Taricisio Bertone said, the College of Cardinals “is not, and cannot be, a mere assembly in which the various local churches are represented using democratic methods.”
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[peary]

**Europe is the pivotal area right now that needs the Church and its witness more than ever in its history. If the College of Cardinals appears top heavy with both European and North Americans, it is for this reason. **

 

[Petergee]

The same thing occurred to me - the distribution of cardinals matches very closely with the proportionate distribution of the world’s priests. Obviously the more priests a country has, the more chance of getting a really outstanding one to appoint as a bishop, and getting a really outstanding bishop to appoint as a Cardinal, as there’s a bigger pool to choose from. Latin America, the Phillippines and many parts of Africa have a low ratio of Cardinals to Catholics because they have a low rate of vocations to the priesthood. People in Europe, USA, Canada and Australia complain of a shortage of priests, but in fact their ratio of priests to Catholics is still much higher than in the rest of the world.

And no, it doesn’t necessarily follow that poverty = people can’t afford to educate seminarians and pay upkeep of priests = fewer Cardinals. e.g. India, although quite poor, has a high rate of vocations to the priesthood and hence a large number of Cardinals for its relatively small Catholic population.

 

[peary]

And no, it doesn’t necessarily follow that poverty = people can’t afford to educate seminarians and pay upkeep of priests = fewer Cardinals. e.g. India, although quite poor, has a high rate of vocations to the priesthood and hence a large number of Cardinals for its relatively small Catholic population.

In some very poor countries, it is the bishops themselves who instruct the candidates for the priesthood.