Brief History of the Cardinalate

To understand the origins of the College of Cardinals, we can consider its roots in ancient Jewish practice. The Pentateuch records how God called Moses to serve as a bridge between humanity and Himself. Moses was simultaneously the head of Israel as well as the human voice of the Almighty (Ex 3:10-12). To Moses was given the power to teach and enforce God’s Law; to pray and make sacrifices for Israel; to establish feasts, such as Passover; and to direct the decoration and building of the tent of worship. Moses also established a particular hierarchy among his collaborators. Following the Lord’s orders, Moses ordained his brother Aaron as the high priest, established seventy elders to assist him, and also consecrated the men of the tribe of Levi to assist the priesthood (Lev 8; Num 11:16-17).

When Jesus Christ walked this earth, He, too, established a hierarchy, one evocative of the earlier order. He called to Himself twelve apostles, who were consecrated to the Father’s service through the Spirit and participated in His own life as His friends (Mt 10:1-4; Jn 17:17-19). He gave them power and authority to teach all that He taught, to cast out demons, to baptize, to anoint the sick, to forgive sins, and to celebrate the Holy Eucharist (Mt 10:5-15; 28:19-20; Mk 6:13; Jn 20:19-23). Christ also appointed seventy others. They are less central to the Gospel narratives and were given power for only some of the same acts, such as offering peace, preaching, and exorcizing demons (Lk 10:1-20). Whereas the Old Covenant priesthood was passed on through a bloodline, the priesthood of the New Covenant was passed on through sacramental ordination, as was the episcopate. After Christ ascended into heaven, therefore, the apostles extended their number by ordaining Matthias. According to the will of the Lord (although this is debated), they also added a new grade of Holy Orders by having the disciples of Christ select seven men to serve in the Church for liturgical and everyday needs: the first deacons.¹

Within a very short time, the early Church began to distinguish between three distinct grades of Holy Orders: bishop, priest, and deacon. St. Clement, third bishop of Rome and successor to St. Peter (ca. A.D. 88), indicates that Catholic Holy Orders are somehow parallel to the Old Testament orders.² Hundreds of years later, St. Jerome affirms more clearly: “So that we can know that the apostolic traditions were taken from the Old Testament, positions which were occupied by Aaron, his sons, and the Levites in the temple, are now claimed by bishops, presbyters, and deacons in the Church.” ³ Eventually the pope’s chief helpers, his “cardinal” assistants, would be associated with these three grades of orders, comprising cardinal-bishops, cardinal-priests, and cardinal-deacons.

Here is how that came about.

In continuity with the Mosaic and the apostolic recognition that rulers need delegates to assist them, St. Peter ordained seven deacons for the Diocese of Rome before his death, according to the ancient Book of Pontiffs.⁴From the earliest times, deacons played a particular role as assistant to the bishop — for example, by reading the Gospel during the sacred liturgy, distributing Holy Communion, and occasionally baptizing; they often came in groups of seven. ⁵ They were often associated with the lowest rank of Old Testament clergy, the Levites. Soon after St. Peter was martyred, Pope St. Clement created seven districts — later called “deaconries” — within Rome for administrative purposes; Pope Evaristus ordained seven deacons to bear witness to the pope’s teachings; and in the third century Pope St. Fabianus appointed seven deacons to administer affairs within those regions, with the help of seven subdeacons and notaries.⁶

By the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great (540-604), the position “cardinal-deacon” was held by a deacon who exercised precedence over other deacons while being incardinated stably from another large parish or diocese.⁷ Around the same period, eighteen monastic churches were associated with the expanded group of cardinal-deacons, whose work included distributing food and financial help to widows, orphans, and the poor from the alms collected by the pope.

Because Rome was the preeminent diocese in the world, its clergy who were incardinated into an ancient church locale, including these deacons, took precedence over other clergy in the city and elsewhere.⁸ To the senior cardinal-deacon was given the task of reading out and counting the votes in a conclave for the election of a pope: in 1515, Giovanni de’Medici “had the welcome task of announcing his own election.⁹ After the Council of Trent, disputes about the rights of cardinals within Rome led to a decree that all cardinals, including cardinal-deacons, had “quasi-episcopal” status in their proper churches.¹⁰ Due in part to confusion as to how a deacon could exercise quasi-episcopal powers and have jurisdictional precedence even over non-Roman bishops, the 1917 Code of Canon Law, canon 232, §1, stipulated that all cardinals were to be at least ordained priests. John XXIII decreed in 1962 that cardinals ordinarily are to be ordained bishops.¹¹ However, Paul VI removed from all cardinals the rights of jurisdiction and ownership over their titular parishes, thus making the differences among ranks more honorific than otherwise.¹²

Turning to cardinal-priests, now considered a higher dignity than the level of deacons, ancient tradition holds that St. Peter ordained ten priests and instructed St. Cletus, his eventual successor after Pope St. Linus, to ordain twenty-five men as priests for the Diocese of Rome.¹³ Less than twenty years later, another pope divided the parish or “titular” churches in Rome among his priest collaborators.¹⁴ Evidence indicates that the title “cardinal-priest” was given to presbyters who oversaw the ancient titular churches, and perhaps others, in a juridically stable way on behalf of the pope.¹⁵ Around the year 306, Pope Evaristus clarified that priests in these churches had the power to administer Baptism, Penance, Eucharist, and the interment of martyrs there.¹⁶ Augustine of Hippo attested to an established practice whereby the bishop of Rome would consult with a council of his presbyters regarding doctrinal and disciplinary matters. In a remarkable letter to Pope Boniface (418-422), he defended the decisions of the Roman clergy — almost certainly these cardinal-priests — under Zosimus, the previous pope (417-418), explaining that their patience with heretics was a sign of mercy, not prevarication.¹⁷ For assistance in pontifical liturgical duties, a pope in the fifth century established a rotation of cardinal-priests to celebrate Mass in the most important patriarchal basilicas: St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s, and St. Lawrence; St. Mary Major was added at some later point.¹⁸ In the ninth century, a law for cardinal-priests was promulgated, formalizing their roles as supervisors of ecclesiastical discipline and judges of law within their jurisdictions. Significantly, the document states that the pope stands in the place of Moses with his clemency, whereas the cardinal-priests stand in the place of the seventy elders, who judged cases under the authority of Moses.¹⁹ They were also associated with the middle rank of Old Testament clergy — namely, the Temple priests. As precedence and functions morphed through time, by the twelfth century the Church of St. Mary Major had gained precedence over the other titular churches of cardinal-priests, who since then have formed the greater majority of the College of Cardinals.²⁰

Cardinal-bishops are the first in rank, the smallest in number, and the last to be historically established.²¹ All of the first apostles were bishops in their own right; they came to be heads of the ancient local churches that they established. The acute persecutions in Rome led the early popes to establish suffragan bishops to assist in pastoral duties throughout the city and its environs: a situation that distinguished the Roman church from nearly every other in the early Church.²² St. Peter is reputed to have ordained three bishops, each of whom, in turn, would be his successor as supreme pontiff.²³

According to ancient (pagan) Roman law, the prefect of the city (Praefectus Urbis) had jurisdiction over an area one hundred miles from the city, a large area where emperors and aristocrats made their estates known as the suburbanum, “the place under the City.”²⁴ A similar administrative structure was early adopted by the bishops of Rome, with suffragan bishoprics established in the “suburbicarian” sees, eventually comprising Ostia, Porto Santa Rufina, Albano, Sabina, Tusculum (Frascati), and Palestrina.²⁵ Augustine attests that the bishop of Ostia was the first to consecrate the bishop of Rome²⁶, apparently a decision made by Pope Marcus in 336. ²⁷ Over four hundred years later (769), Pope Stephen decided that these bishops, now designated with the title “cardinal,” could be obliged to celebrate Holy Mass in his place at the Lateran Basilica.²⁸ By the early Middle Ages, the great reforming saint Peter Damian, cardinal-bishop of Ostia (1057-1072), called his brothers “cardinals of the Lateran Church,” indicating an established recognition of their particular status and rank.²⁹ In 2018, Pope Francis created an anomalous situation by making four men cardinal-bishops despite their not possessing suburbicarian sees: Pietro Parolin, Leonardo Sandri, Marc Ouellet, and Fernando Filoni.³⁰

By the late Middle Ages, the precedence of cardinal-bishops above all other members of the ecclesiastical hierarchy was recognized in ecumenical councils, with the cardinal-bishop of Ostia foremost.³¹It was only during the time of the Council of Trent, however, that Pope Paul IV finally formalized the practice that the cardinal-bishop of Ostia would also be the dean of the College of Cardinals.³² Canon 237 of the 1917 Code specified that the dean would be whichever cardinal-bishop from a suburbicarian see was most senior — and it clarified that as primus inter aequales (first among equals) he would have no jurisdiction over his brother cardinals at all.³³ Following his tendency toward the democratization of the Church, Pope Paul VI declared that cardinals would elect their dean from among the cardinal-bishops holding suburbicarian offices; he would then receive the title “Cardinal Bishop of Ostia.”³⁴ Perhaps in response to the unusual situation of Angelo Cardinal Sodano, who held power as secretary of state for fifteen years and then as dean of cardinals for fourteen years, Pope Francis has limited the term of dean to five years.³⁵

Evidence of the cardinals considered as a group arises in 853, when Pope Leo IV called cardinals of all three ranks to assist him with decisions for the Diocese of Rome.³⁶From that time forward, there is evidence that these cardinals were an established ecclesiastical division preeminent in subsequent Roman synods; within a couple of centuries, they expressly participated in papal government over the Church as cardinals and not simply according to their episcopal, presbyteral, or diaconal roles. ³⁷ Whereas St. Ignatius of Antioch spoke in the first century of the bishop as standing in place of God, and the priests standing in place of the “senate of apostles,”³⁸ St. Peter Damian, nearly a thousand years later, referred to the entire group of cardinals as the “Senate of the Church,” under the bishop of Rome, who stands in the place of the true Emperor of the world.³⁹ By around 1100, the group was referred to as the “College of Cardinals,” a title that has persisted since then.⁴⁰ Increasingly the members of the College exercised jurisdiction over the rest of the Church, including other bishops and even secular rulers, and by serving with delegated papal authority in various matters. In this way, the College as a whole and its members were considered to be “papal assistants and coadiutores, whose power was directly invested by the pope,” whom they elected.⁴¹

1
Acts 6:1-6 records the founding of the diaconate, especially for the purpose of “serving at table” and distributing alms. Soon enough, we see the deacon Philip preaching, explaining Sacred Scripture, and administering Baptism (Acts 8:12, 30-38).
2
Clement of Rome, Letter to the Corinthians, c. 40.
3
Hieronymus, Epistulae 121-154, ed. I. Hilberg: Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL), vol. 56 (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1910), Letter 146: To Evangelus, 2, p. 312.
4
The Book of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis): The Ancient Biographies of the First Ninety Roman Bishops to AD 715, trans. Raymond Davis, rev. ed. (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010), 2. Also, The Book of the Popes (Liber Pontificalis) I: To the Pontificate of Gregory I, trans. and ed. Louise Ropes Loomis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1916), 6. Loomis and other historians speculate that the work imposes a narrative to justify fifth-century ecclesiastical practices, including issues related to cardinals (see p. 7, n. 2). This reflects an oral tradition that was incompletely documented because of pre-Constantinian persecutions.
5
See Loomis, Book of the Popes, 6n1.
6
Ibid., 8, 10, 24.
7
Stephan Kuttner, “Cardinalis: The History of a Canonical Concept,” Traditio 3 (1945): 123-214 at 144.
8
Charles Augustine, A Commentary on the New Code of Canon Law, col. 2, 3rd ed. (St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder, 1919), 228.
9
Mary Hollingsworth, “Cardinals in Conclave,” in A Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal, ed. Mary Hollingsworth et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 58-70 at 67.
10
Arnold Witte, “Cardinals and Their Titular Churches,” in A Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal, 333-50 at 344.
11
John XXIII, Motu Proprio Cum Gravissima (15 April 1962). This measure was directed to exclude deacons from the cardinalate, for he excepts cardinal-priests from this requirement; indeed, he made honorary cardinals out of a number of priests.
12
Paul VI, Motu Proprio Ad Hoc Usque Tempus (15 April 1969).
13
Loomis, Book of the Popes, 7.
14
Ibid., 10. Also, Arnold Witte, “Cardinals and Their Titular Churches,” 333-50. The “titular” churches were originally homes whose legal titles were held by pious laymen.
15
Kuttner, “Cardinalis,” 139-42.
16
Ibid., 147. It may be that the original twenty-five parishes were reorganized at this time because of a loss of organization on account of persecutions. See Loomis, Book of the Popes, 38n3.
17
See Augustinus Hipponensis, Contra duas Epistolas Pelagianorum (Against Two Letters of the Pelagians), lib. II, c. 3 (5) and c. 4 (8).
18
Pope Simplicius (468-83); Kuttner, “Cardinalis,” 147-8.
19
Promulgated by Pope John VIII (872-882). Johannes Dominicus Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum, vol. 17 (Venice: Atonium Zatta, 1772; repr. Paris: H. Welter, 1902), col. 247.
20
Sägmüller, “Cardinal.”
21
For rank, see CIC/83 can. 350.1.
22
Outside of Rome, the early norm was one bishop per diocese. Kuttner, “Cardinalis,” 146.
23
That is, Linus, Cletus, and Clement. Loomis, Book of the Popes, 6.
24
See “Rome, surroundings of,” in The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, ed. Oliver Nicholson, vol. 1: A-I (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2018), 1308.
25
See Can. 6 of the Council of Nicaea; Sägmüller, “Cardinal.”
26
Augustinus Hipponensis, Breviculus collationis cum Donatistas (Brief Collations with Donatists), pars. III, 16.29.
27
Loomis, Book of the Popes, 72
28
Kuttner, “Cardinalis,” 149.
29
Ibid., 151-2.
30
Rescriptum (29 June 2018).
31
Bernward Schmidt, “Cardinals, Bishops, and Councils,” in A Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal, 91-108 at 101.
32
Paul IV, Bull Cum Venerabiles (22 August 1555). See Rudolf Hüls, Kardinäle, Klerus und Kirchen Roms: 1049-1130 (Tübingen: Niemeyer/De Gruyter, 1977), 77-80.
33
See also CIC/83 can. 352.1.
34
Paul VI, Motu Proprio Sacro Cardinalium Consilio (26 February 1965).
35
Francis, Motu Proprio Riguardante l’Ufficio del Decano del Collegio Cardinalizio (21 December 2019).
36
The Lives of the Ninth-Century Popes (Liber Pontificalis): The Ancient Biographies of Ten Popes from A.D. 817-891, trans. Raymond Davis (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995), 150-51. See Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum, vol. 14, cols. 1009-16.
37
Barbara Bombi, “The Medieval Background of the Cardinal’s Office,” in A Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal, 9-22 at 10.
38
Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to Magnesians, c. 6.1: συνεδρíου τῶν ἀποστóλων. The French translation accurately renders it sénat des apôtres. Ignace D’Antioche, Polycarpe de Smyrne, Lettres, Martyre de Polycarpe, ed. and trans. Thomas Camelot, 3rd ed. (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1958), 98.
39
Peter Damian, Letters 91-120, trans. Owen J. Blum (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1998), Letter 97, 82n22.
40
Bombi, “The Medieval Background of the Cardinal’s Office,” 12.
41
Ibid.

Brief History of the Cardinalate

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