Indianapolis Colts owner donates $5 million to Catholic Charities to honor cousin, a nun

The extraordinary consistory of cardinals meets at the Vatican’s Synod Hall, Aug. 29, 2022. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Staff, Sep 29, 2023 / 17:25 pm (CNA).

On Saturday, Sept. 30, Pope Francis will create 21 new cardinals at a consistory in Rome. 

Here’s everything you need to know:

What’s a consistory?

Cardinals are the pope’s closest assistants and advisers, from all around the world. A consistory is a formal meeting of the College of Cardinals. The pope can convene them for a number of reasons.

One of the most common reasons for a consistory, as is the case here, is to create new cardinals. The ceremony in which the pope makes cardinals is known as an ordinary public consistory. 

Another consistory the pope may convene is an ordinary consistory to vote on the causes of new saints, the last step before a formal canonization can take place.

There are also extraordinary consistories, in which every cardinal is expected to take part, barring a serious reason.

The last ordinary public consistory took place on Aug. 27, 2022. The new cardinals created then included Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego and Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

Soon after, Pope Francis convened an extraordinary consistory, which took place Aug. 29–30, 2022, during which the world’s cardinals came to Rome to discuss the new constitution of the Roman Curia, Praedicate Evangelium.

Who is being made cardinal this weekend?

Twenty-one men from around the world will “receive the red hat” and become cardinals at the September consistory. 

Among them is Stephen Chow Sau-yan, SJ, bishop of Hong Kong; Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States; Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem; and Víctor Manuel Fernández, the new prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. 

A list along with an analysis of each cardinal-elect’s spiritual motto can be found here. 

What will actually happen at this consistory?

In addition to giving each new cardinal their hat, or biretta, Pope Francis at the Sept. 30 liturgy at St. Peter’s Basilica will place a ring on the hand of each new cardinal while saying: “Receive this ring from the hand of Peter and know that, with the love of the Prince of the Apostles, your love for the Church is strengthened.” They will also each receive the formal decree (or papal bull) announcing their creation as a cardinal.

The scarlet biretta is, as the pope will recite, a “sign of the dignity of the cardinalate, signifying your readiness to act with courage, even to the shedding of your blood, for the increase of the Christian faith, for the peace and tranquility of the people of God and for the freedom and growth of the Holy Roman Church.”

Immediately before, the new cardinals will make a profession of faith by reciting the Creed. They then pronounce an oath of fidelity and obedience to the pope and his successors.

The pope will also assign each new cardinal a church in the Diocese of Rome, called a “titular church.” This further links the cardinal to Rome and to the pope, who is the bishop of Rome.

The other members of the College of Cardinals, clergy, Catholics, and members of the public may all attend a consistory to create cardinals.

So, how many cardinals will there be, and why does it matter?

St. Paul VI established in 1970 that cardinals aged 80 and over cannot participate in the process of electing a pope — thus, cardinals who are younger than 80 are known as “electors.” Paul VI also established a numerical limit for the number of electors, capping it at 120, but the number occasionally has risen above that number.   

The number of cardinal electors — and indeed the number of cardinals in general — in the college is always changing, since at any time cardinals may be celebrating their 80th birthday or may have died. 

According to the Vatican, as of Sept. 29, there were 119 cardinal electors ahead of the consistory and 102 non-electors. After the consistory, the number will rise to 105 non-electors and 136 electors. 

Francis has shaped the college greatly during his 10 years as pope, appointing 98, or 72%, of the current electors after the conclave on Sept. 30. The rest were appointed by St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. In all, he has named cardinals from 66 countries, including several first-time nations, such as South Sudan, Singapore, and Mongolia.

That percentage becomes important given the current requirement that a candidate needs a two-thirds majority of the cardinals’ votes to be elected pope. This, however, is a provision that Pope Francis could change at any time. 

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null / L’Osservatore Romano.

Denver, Colo., Feb 23, 2023 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

Lent is supposed to be a time of penance in the Catholic Church. This year, it’s a time when priests in the confessional will use a revised translation of the sacrament of penance and reconciliation to forgive the sins of Catholic penitents.

The changes are noticeable in the formula of absolution, when the priest speaks in the person of Jesus Christ to absolve a Catholic from his or her sins. The “essential words” of the priest’s absolution formula have not been changed, but there are “two minor modifications to the preliminary part of the prayer,” according to the April 2022 newsletter of the Committee on Divine Worship of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

Here’s the new approved text, with changes in bold:

God, the Father of mercies,

through the Death and Resurrection of his Son

has reconciled the world to himself

and poured out the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins;

through the ministry of the Church may God grant you pardon and peace,

and I absolve you from your sins

in the name of the Father, and of the Son, [sign of the cross] 

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

The line “poured out the Holy Spirit” previously read “sent the Holy Spirit among us.” The phrase “may God grant you pardon and peace” is only a one-word change: It previously read “may God give you pardon and peace.”

The changes add “a little bit more richness to the language,” according to Monsignor Richard Hilgartner, a former executive director of the USCCB’s Secretariat of Divine Worship who is now pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Cockeysville, Maryland.

“God’s granting something that we don’t deserve, and that’s what forgiveness is. It’s something that we don’t earn or deserve,” Hilgartner told the Archdiocese of Baltimore newspaper The Catholic Review.

The sacrament of penance, also called reconciliation or confession, is the means through which God grants pardon for sins through the priest’s ministry. In the sacrament, the contrite penitent discloses his or her sins to a Catholic priest who grants sacramental absolution. The penitent makes an act of contrition in which he or she resolves to not sin again. The priest generally instructs the penitent to perform an act of satisfaction, usually called a penance. This can take the form of prayer, such as praying three Hail Marys, for example.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 2021 fall general assembly voted in favor of the new translation of the prayer, with 182 votes in favor, 6 against, and 2 abstentions. The Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments approved the translation in April 2022.

The new language for the priest’s absolution is allowed as of Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. Priests must use the new language starting on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 16, the first Sunday after Easter 2023.

Hilgartner noted that the liturgical season of Lent is a penitential time when many Catholics especially seek out the sacrament of reconciliation. He told the Catholic Review that many Catholics feel peace and relief after going to confession, especially if they have been away from the sacrament for a long time.

“Inevitably, people say, ‘I feel so much better. I feel like a burden has been lifted,’ because that’s what’s happening. God is casting behind his back all our sins, taking them away from us in a way that we don’t know how to do for ourselves,” he said. “I hear often about how people feel literally unburdened by this happening. And it’s the great gift — that the Lord’s taking this upon himself. For us, this is what the cross is all about, that he takes all of our sins to the cross so that we don’t have to.”

Under Church law, every Catholic has the right to an anonymous sacramental confession. In practice, priests often do not even know the identity of a penitent. In the Catholic understanding of the “seal of confession,” the contents are “inviolable.” Any priest who discloses the contents of a confession faces among the harshest penalties of the Church, an automatic excommunication.

Pope Francis has frequently encouraged Catholics to receive God’s forgiveness in the sacrament of penance.

[…]

Baltimore, Md., Feb 22, 2017 / 02:11 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Both Pope Francis and St. Francis of Assisi provide the right perspective on caring for creation in a way that places care for humanity at its center, said Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta.
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