Cardinals’ special meeting offers new opening for reform

Just five days after the Feb. 21 ceremony creating 44 new cardinals, Pope John Paul surprised everyone by calling all 183 cardinals back to Rome for a special meeting May 21-24. He said he was consulting them about the Church’s future in light of his Jan. 6 apostolic letter, Novo Millennio Ineunte, and made frank references to the need for greater collegiality, or sharing of power. The Tablet (London) said a number of cardinals confirmed that the meeting will discuss spreading decision-making powers among the bishops, and is likely to set the agenda for the October international synod of bishops in October.

Such an “extraordinary consistory” of all cardinals to advise the Pope is rare: this will be John Paul’s sixth in 23 years, and the first since 1994. The May meeting sounds a lot like the “plenary convocation of the world’s bishops” repeatedly urged by the leading progressive, Cardinal Carlo Martini of Milan, most recently in an outspoken newspaper interview in January.

Progressives made cardinals

After years of centralizing power in the Curia, downplaying local bishops and marginalizing bishops’ conferences, the Pope is creating a forum for the world’s cardinals to discuss a realignment. Veteran proponents of collegiality like Martini, Danneels of Belgium, and Koenig of Austria, will have new allies among the 44 newly created cardinals. Though many are conservative, a surprising number are moderates. Giovanni Battista Re, new head of the Congregation for Bishops which handles episcopal appointments worldwide, is close to the Martini camp. Karl Lehmann of Mainz, president of the German bishops’ conference, has opposed the Vatican on abortion counselling centers. He was left off the first list of cardinal appointments, but added a week later after German bishops warned that German Catholics might deny Rome the millions that flow annually from church taxes. Fellow German Walter Kasper is new head of the Vatican office for Christian Unity, even though both he and Lehmann drew Vatican fire for advocating communion for divorced-remarried Catholics. A leading ecumenical theologian, Kasper has been sharply critical of Cardinal Ratzinger and his recent letter, Dominus Iesus.

Honduras’ first cardinal, Oscar Rodriguez, at 58 an influential leader from the Third World, lauds liberation theology despite Cardinal Ratzinger’s long campaign against it. Asked about the coming consistory, he told journalists, “All of us are convinced it is necessary to increase collegiality.”

Rehearsal for conclave

Of the 183 cardinals invited to Rome in May, 135 are under 80 and eligible to vote in a conclave to choose the next pope. How both these electors and their older colleagues influence each other in May will affect that election. The addition of new moderates, and the chance to discuss collegiality now, offers a gleam of hope for decentralization. Or at least, as John Allen of NCR says, “The Holy Spirit has more options.”