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[Catholic Caucus] Liturgy Sidestepped at Pope Leo XIV’s First Consistory? Cardinals choose evangelization and synodality as key topics, disappointing those who expected the liturgy to be a central theme after recent restrictions on the traditional form of the Roman rite, but the Holy Father later insists the liturgy remains a "very concrete" issue that still needs to be addressed.Some cardinals and faithful who have a devotion to the traditional Roman rite have expressed concern that the liturgy appears to be sidelined in the extraordinary consistory currently underway at the Vatican after the cardinals voted to give priority to other issues...

[Catholic Caucus] Pro-LGBT Cdl. Radcliffe urges ‘openness to novelty’ in address to extraordinary consistoryReports from inside the Vatican suggest growing unease among the cardinals after Pope Leo’s two-day gathering opened with tightly controlled group sessions led by progressive voices.Progressive and pro-LGBT Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe delivered the opening meditation at the consistory in Rome by urging cardinals to remain “in the boat of Peter” amid global crises and Church divisions while suggesting “memory and openness to novelty must coexist in the life of the Church.”On the afternoon of January 7, Pope Leo XIV opened a two-day extraordinary consistory at the Vatican,...

[Catholic Caucus] What to watch at Pope Leo’s first extraordinary consistoryThe major event in the ecclesial calendar this week is the Extraordinary Consistory, a formal meeting of cardinals which Pope Leo has summoned for 7 and 8 January. This will be his first, and such meetings take place very much as the Pope wishes. Although Pope Francis held a consistory in almost every year of his pontificate, after 2015 he reduced the discussion element, while continuing to use them primarily to create new cardinals. For ten years the world’s cardinals have been rather muzzled. They now have an opportunity to...

[Catholic Caucus] EXCLUSIVE: Letter to Cardinals Offers Solution for TLM Ahead of Pope Leo XIV’s First ConsistoryCould an ecclesiastical jurisdiction for the traditional Roman liturgy resolve the impasse created by “Traditionis Custodes”?ROME, 5 January 2026 — In view of the liturgy being on the agenda at the extraordinary consistory of cardinals convened by Pope Leo XIV this week, one of France’s most senior traditionalist clergy has sent members of the Sacred College a letter proposing a new path for the ancient Roman Rite in the Catholic Church.Published here exclusively in French and English translation, the letter aims to open a...

[Catholic Caucus] Italian Daily "Il Giornale": Liturgical question at the heart of the Consistory of Cardinals called by the Pope for early January[Main excerpts:]In these last days of 2025, the anticipation in the Vatican will not end with the conclusion of Advent. A more “secular” anticipation, in fact, is that for the extraordinary consistory on January 7 and 8, called for by Leo XIV.The cardinals received the convocation on November 7 from Dean Giovanni Battista Re and are expected by the Pope on the afternoon of the first Wednesday of the year and then the following morning for the concelebration...

[Catholic Caucus] Leo XIV’s first great test: unity, contradiction, and the College of CardinalsLess than twenty-four hours after formally closing the Holy Year itinerary he inherited from Pope Francis, Leo XIV will host a meeting that will be pivotal for his reign.The extraordinary consistory of cardinals scheduled for January 7 and 8 will be the first since August 2022. Francis held only three such meetings during his reign, but he also created the significant majority of the College and expanded the Church’s global reach by creating cardinals as far afield as Tonga and Mongolia.The huge geographical distances between cardinals meant...

(Vatican Radio)  Among the 20 new cardinals created by Pope Francis Saturday are men drawn from churches on the peripheries of the ecclesial and geographical world. The director of Vatican Radio English section, Sean Patrick Lovett, takes a closer look at some of the newest members of the College of Cardinals: Just how far do the peripheries of the Church extend? For an answer, you could go to Google maps or get out your world atlas. Or you could simply look at the countries from which the 20 new cardinals come, and see for yourself: from Mozambique to Mexico, from Thailand to...

Pope Francis embraces a new cardinal at the Feb. 22 consistory, February 22, 2014. Credit: Lauren Cater/CNA. Vatican City, Feb 22, 2014 / 05:43 am (CNA/EWTN News).- During the Saturday morning consistory at which Pope Francis created 19 new Cardinals, he urged the prelates gathered in St. Peter’s Basilica to serve the Church fearlessly. “The Church needs your courage, to proclaim the Gospel at all times, both in season and out of season, and to bear witness to the truth,” emphasized the Pope on Feb. 22. St. Peter’s Basilica was filled with nearly 200 members of the College of Cardinals...

(VIS/Vatican Radio) The director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., gave a briefing for journalists at midday Thursday on the progress of the extraordinary consistory for the family which opened this morning in the New Synod Hall and in which around 150 cardinals participated. “After the Pope's address, the cardinals sent an affectionate greeting to Archbishop Loris Capovilla, one of the new cardinals to be created by the Holy Father in next Saturday's consistory, who for reasons of age and health was not able to travel to Rome, but who is present in the spirit of...

Howdy, The consistory had been announced on 31 Oct 2013 to be held on 22 Feb 2014. This will be the first consistory to create new cardinals by Pope Francis. The following will be added to the College of Cardinals at that time: 16 Cardinal Electors: * Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State; Age: 59.1 * Lorenzo Baldisseri, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops; Age: 73.4 * Gerhard Ludwig Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith; Age: 66.1 * Beniamino Stella, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy; Age: 72.5 * Vincent Gerard Nichols, Archbishop of...

(Vatican Radio) – Pope Benedict XVI has announced a consistory for the creation of six new Cardinals. To the joy of pilgrims gathered in St Peter's Square for the weekly audience with the Holy Father, he made his announcement at the end of his catechesis. Emer McCarthy reports: The new cardinals come from three continents: America, Africa and Asia, and they are:Archbishop James Michael Harvey, Prefect of the Pontifical House, who will be appointed Archpriest of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, His Beatitude Bechara Boutros Raï, Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites (Lebanon), His Beatitude Baselios...

Below is the full text of the introduction on the New Evangelization given on Friday by Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan (Archbishop of New York) during the Day of Prayer and Reflection of the College of Cardinals the day before the Consitory creating 22 new Cardinals.The Announcement of the Gospel Today, Between missio ad gentes and the New EvangelizationHoly Father, Cardinal Sodano, my brothers in Christ:Sia lodato Gesu Cristo! It is as old as the final mandate of Jesus, “Go, teach all nations!,” yet as fresh as God’s Holy Word proclaimed at our own Mass this morning. I speak of the sacred...

2012-02-17 L’Osservatore Romano “The Announcement of the Gospel Today, Between 'missio ad gentes' and the New Evangelization” is the theme of the Day of Prayer and Reflection for the College of Cardinals and the new Cardinals on the occasion of the Consistory. This day, called by the Holy Father, began this morning, Friday 17 February, in the New Hall of the Synod of Bishops in the Vatican and will conclude this evening after Vespers. The Day began with a celebration of the Terce which was followed by a welcome speech by the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo...

ROME -- Theologically all cardinals may be equal, but in terms of celebrity appeal, some are obviously more equal than others. Each consistory, when a pope inducts new members into the church’s most exclusive club, tends to have its own “rock star” – that one new cardinal who is head and shoulders above everyone else on the buzz meter.In February 2001, when John Paul II created a whopping 42 new cardinals, that rock star was Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, a handsome, young polyglot who seemed the new face of the church in Latin America. In March 2006, Benedict’s first...

Seeing the shot above, one can almost hear that now-famous Midwestern voice saying, "Allright, everybody...." For Timothy Michael Dolan, this weekend caps a meteoric rise of the kind only he could make look natural. To use just one example, before the 62 year-old prelate, never have the terms "Archbishop of New York" and "President of the American Bishops" been able to exist in the same sentence, unless historians were discussing the dual legitimacy which Francis Spellman lusted, and even John O'Connor earnestly sought, yet neither would ever know. Of course, not even two years after his appointment to the...

Apart from the newly-crowned national football champions (Go SEC!), there's been another tide of crimson on the horizon in the news: Earlier this week, Pope Benedict announced a consistory in which he will raise 22 prelates to the Sacred College of Cardinals. Among the newly named cardinals are two Americans: Timothy Dolan, the current archbishop of New York and Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, the former archbishop of Baltimore and the current Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. I was gonna post that news and leave it at that. But it occurred to me that for...

Cardinals attend mass in St. Peter's Basilica for the Epiphany on Jan. 6, 2012 Vatican City, Jan 10, 2012 / 03:27 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- When Pope Benedict XVI creates 22 new cardinals next month, he will use a revised and simplified version of the ceremony to avoid any impression that becoming a cardinal is a sacrament.“The creation of new cardinals had to be inserted into a context of prayer, while at the same time avoiding anything that could give rise to the idea of a ‘cardinalatial Sacrament,’" the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff said Jan. 10....

Cardinals Created by the Savi Brothers, the Vatican's trusted goldsmiths. On 18 February the Pope will appoint 15 new cardinals Andrea TornielliVatican City In February - in all likelihood the 18th and 19th of February - the fourth consistory for the creation of new cardinals in Benedict XVI's pontificate will take place. Vatican Insider has written many times of the lists of possible new cardinals: the now-imminent decision is confirmed by the purchasing of the new cardinal's rings. It is tradition, in fact, for the reigning Pontiff to give a ring to the new “senators of the Church”. Up until...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict installed 24 new Roman Catholic cardinals from around the world on Saturday in his latest batch of appointments that could include his successor as leader of the 1.2 billion member church. As their national delegations cheered, the men were elevated to their new rank as top advisers to the pope at a solemn ceremony in St Peter's Basilica known as a consistory. Each of the 24 men swore their loyalty to him, to future popes and to the church, even if it meant giving their lives. Twenty of the new cardinals are under 80...

Thomas J. Reese, S.J., senior fellow at the Woodstock Center in Georgetown, Md., former editor in chief of America, and author of Inside the Vatican sent us along this helpful primer--designed for the media but informative for everyone--for the upcoming consistory.  Here's Tom's typically thorough take: There are two kinds of consistories. Ordinary consistories are normally for certain solemn ceremonies such as canonizations, the conferral of the pallium to archbishops, or the creation of new cardinals. For an extraordinary consistory, the pope calls all the College of Cardinals to Rome to advise him on issues facing the church. The discussions in extraordinary consistories...