VATICAN CITY —A scandal over leaked Vatican documents and reports of political infighting, financial mismanagement and administrative chaos in the Holy See’s halls have cast a cloud over this weekend’s ceremony to create 22 new cardinals.
With Pope Benedict XVI slowing down as he nears his 85th birthday, today’s ceremony has taken on the aura of a pre-conclave summit. Reports abound in the Italian media of cardinals and their supporters jockeying for prominence ahead of a future papal election, and of a Vatican bureaucracy in disarray as Benedict focuses his waning strength on other matters.
All that has weighed on today’s consistory, where the 22 new princes of the church will get their red hats, or birette, and be formally welcomed into the elite men’s club that will elect Benedict’s successor. That ceremony will bring up to 125 the number of cardinals worldwide eligible to vote for the next pope.
On Friday, cardinals new and old joined Benedict for a pre-consistory day of reflection on spreading the faith in an increasingly secularized world. The meeting was headlined by Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York.
Dolan peppered his remarks with his trademark good humor and his
delivery lightened the mood of the otherwise somber Vatican. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, took pains to tell journalists how appreciative the cardinals were of Dolan’s “lively” remarks.
The Vatican spokesman has been doing serious damage control of late amid reports and leaked documents alleging corruption in the running of the Vatican city state, money laundering at the Vatican bank and political infighting.
