Roles of Present-Day Cardinals

As seen in the historical consideration of the cardinalate, early on in the history of the Church, the pope gathered to himself various members of the Roman clergy to assist him in pastoral tasks that included administrative, legal, liturgical, and doctrinal work. In time, the group of cardinals who assisted him on a regular basis, even many times a week, formed the center of his “curia,” modeled, in part, on the pre-Christian city council (Latin curia) that helped rule secular Rome and its environs.¹ This ecclesiastical organization has undergone changes through the centuries, noticeably since the Second Vatican Council’s call to reshape the Roman Curia and Paul VI’s implementation thereof.² Presently the Roman Curia is organized for the most part by the 1983 Code of Canon Law and Pope Francis’ 2022 apostolic constitution entitled Praedicate Evangelium (Preach the Gospel).

Undoubtedly the most important role of a cardinal is to elect a Roman pontiff, a theme treated further on, but to understand these electors — a few of whom were themselves elected — we may take a wider view of their present-day roles. For centuries, Christians recognized the color red in clothing, whether liturgical or ceremonial, as symbolizing martyrdom; in 1245 Pope Innocent IV inaugurated the custom of giving cardinals red hats as their signature clothing — which lasted until Paul VI’s abrogation of the practice in 1967.³ In 1630, Urban VIII insisted that cardinals be addressed with the title “Your Eminence” (Italian Sua Eminenza), a custom that remains to this day. ⁴ Cardinals in previous ages were prominent as Princes of the Church, who, with their often enormous incomes and retinues, patronized exquisite paintings, music, and architecture, including their own tombs. In the extraordinary cases of Richelieu and Mazarin, and others like them, some cardinals forged the destinies of entire states. Perhaps in humbler positions, cardinals nevertheless play a significant part in the Church and the world even now. The general qualifications necessary for a man to be promoted as cardinal are laid out in Church law: they are to be “truly outstanding in doctrine, virtue, piety, and prudence in practical matters.”⁵

All cardinals possess certain privileges by right, including: they can keep a private chapel with the Blessed Sacrament; they can hear confessions and preach anywhere in the world; they are not subject to any jurisdiction except that of the pope.⁶ Now that cardinals no longer have jurisdiction over their suburbicarian or titular churches⁷, one may divide all cardinals into one of three groups: curial cardinals, who serve full-time and solely in the Roman Curia, cardinals who have full-time responsibilities as diocesan bishops, and cardinals with no jurisdiction who do not serve in the Curia. ⁸ Below we discuss the first two groups in turn.

Ordinarily the pope conducts the business of the universal Church by means of the Roman Curia, “which acts in his name and with his authority for the good and service of the Churches.”⁹ John Paul II underlines that the Roman Curia is an instrument of the pope; like a pen in the hand of a writer, it possesses “no force and no power apart from what it receives from the same Supreme Pastor.”¹⁰ Therefore, the cardinals work in the Curia in a “vicarious character,” participating in the Petrine Office of the Roman pontiff.¹¹ Their cooperation with the pope helps guarantee Catholic unity — in the first place, unity of faith, and then unity of discipline, in communion with Christ.¹² Curial positions held by cardinals in the spring of 2020 include:

Secretariat of State (Pietro Parolin)
Dicastery for Evangelization (Luis Tagle)
Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (Vìctor Manuel Fernández)
Dicastery for Bishops (Robert Prevost)
Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (Arthur Roche)
Dicastery for Culture and Education (José Tolentino Calaça de Mendonça)
Dicastery for the Causes of Saints (Marcello Semeraro)
Dicastery for the Clergy (Lazzaro You Heung-sik)
Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (João Bráz de Aviz)
Dicastery for the Oriental Churches (Claudio Gugerotti)
Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life (Kevin Farrell; also the Papal Camerlengo)
Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development (Michael Czerny)
Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity (Kurt Koch)
Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue (Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot)
Office of Papal Charities/Papal Almoner (Konrad Krajewski)

This may seem like a fairly sizable number — there are other curial cardinals as well — but in reality, fewer than 20 percent of cardinal electors, with power to cast a vote for the next pope, are solely curial cardinals. It should be noted that being the head of a curial position does not guarantee that one becomes a cardinal, as between 1940 and 1950, Pius XII did not elevate many prefects and presidents to the cardinalate.

By far, the large majority are cardinals who serve as full-time archbishops in dioceses around the world. Traditionally, cardinal-bishops, as seen in the historical section, were those who held sees within the environs of Rome. As the Church grew, the pope began to desire that the archbishops of some important metropolitan areas be cardinals: these locations became known as “cardinalatial sees”: a bishop appointed as its head would customarily receive the scarlet. In this way, cardinals had deep knowledge regarding the most important cities and Catholic centers in the world, including Venice, Milan, Paris, Santiago de Compostela, London, Cologne, Lisbon, Budapest, and later, Tokyo, New York, Washington, D.C., Bombay, and Mexico City, among many others. Being an archbishop of any particular see does not grant a right to the cardinalate, as Pope Francis has shown by not giving the red hat to the archbishops of such sees as Venice, Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.¹³ Because large archbishoprics demand an enormous amount of attention, very few cardinals who lead them are also heads of curial offices — with the rare recent exceptions Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and coordinator for the Council for the Economy, and Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, who for a time was both archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and coordinator of the Council of Cardinals.

1
See “City Councils and Councilors,” in The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity, vol. 1, 352.
2
Second Vatican Council, Decree Christus Dominus (28 October 1965), 9: “The fathers of this sacred council, however, desire that these departments — which have furnished distinguished assistance to the Roman pontiff and the pastors of the Church — be reorganized and better adapted to the needs of the times.” Paul VI, Apostolic Constitution Regimini Ecclesiae Universae (15 August 1967).
3
Carol M. Richardson, “The Cardinal’s Wardrobe,” in A Companion to the Early Modern Cardinal, 535-56 at 540-41.
4
Sägmüller, “Cardinal.”
5
CIC/83 can. 351.1.
6
CIC/83 cans. 357.2, 967.1. Also, Elenchus privilegiorum et facultatum S.R.E Cardinalium in re liturgica et canonica (18 March 1999).
7
CIC/83 can. 357.1
8
See CIC/83 can. 356, which obliges all cardinals who are not diocesan bishops to dwell in Rome.
9
CIC/83 can. 360.
10
John Paul II, Pastor Bonus 7.
11
Ibid., 8.
12
Ibid., 10.
13
Pope Francis has preferred to make cardinal those on the “peripheries,” bishops who lead smaller dioceses, or metropolitan dioceses in the global south, partly to reflect where the Church is growing fastest.

Roles of Present-Day Cardinals

Conclaves

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