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Cardinal Sandri recites the Angelus at the Vatican in 2005, serving as a stand-in for Pope John Paul II (Photo: CNS) The 69-year-old cardinal was born in Buenos Aires in November 1943 and is earmarked as the possible first Latin American pope. But wait: his parents, Antonio and Nella were Italian natives from Trentino, who emigrated to Argentina. Brought up in a bilingual world of Italian and Spanish, Leonardo Sandri grew up in a fusion of Argentinean and European culture. Ordained in 1967, aged 23, he was only 27 when he was plucked from an ordinary priestÂ’s life to become...

Archibishop Timothy Dolan is seen in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral – New York, NY NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — He was just named a cardinal, but could Timothy Dolan one day be named Pope? WCBS 880′s Rich Lamb posed that question to Vatican expert John Allen.Allen cautioned that “historically there has kind of been a taboo against a superpower Pope, that is electing a Pope from one of the global super powers, and that probably still is in play.”That tradition lowers the chances of Dolan becoming the first American elected to the Chair of Peter.“I mean, if you can get...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While pundits and cardinals themselves discounted any chance of a U.S. cardinal emerging as the 265th pontiff, a Canadian cardinal crept quietly onto the lists of "papabili." Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet, a polyglot academic who briefly served as secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, started showing up on Italian newspapers' top-12 list three days before the April 18 conclave. The newspaper Il Messaggero first referred to the 60-year-old as "the wild card" in the cardinals' deck, but the day the conclave opened it highlighted the Canadian's language skills, theological background and "fervent" Marian...