What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

WDTPRS kudos to the Cafeteria where 2 million people have been denied the chance to go through line and get their chow because, as we know, The Cafeteria is Closed.

There is still good fare there, however!

NLM has some interesting information about changes to the College of Cardinals.

A little background.

The College, as I am sure you know, is still divided into the three Orders of Deacons, Priests, and Bishops.  These orders are the remnant of a practice in ancient times of the Roman tituli, which were rather like "parishes", staffed either by deacons or by priests. 

Cardinals today are assigned churches in Rome, and, though there are many more cardinals today than in ancient times, the distinctions of diaconal titles and presbyteral titles remains.  So, even though nearly all the cardinals are really bishops, they are still placed in these Orders in the College of Cardinals.  Usually the Cardinals of the Curia, when first created cardinals, are cardinal deacons, while men who are bishops or archbishops of dioceses are made cardinal priests.  For example, my old boss His Eminence Augustin Card. Mayer, now the oldest living cardinal, was at first Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for divine Worship and, as such, started in the College as a cardinal deacon assigned to the title of Sant’Anselmo (he is a Benedictine).  After 10 years, he was promoted to cardinal priest, though he stayed cardinal of Sant’Anselmo.

The Cardinal Bishops are a different matter.  These were men assigned to one of the little dioceses encircling Rome, the "suburbicarian" dioceses.  The cardinals bishops really were the ordinary bishops of those dioceses once, but in recent times the cardinals are just the titular bishops and there is an ordinary bishop assigned to the diocese.  Today, only those cardinals who fill or filled important curial positions are cardinal bishops.  For example, His Eminence Francis Card. Arinze is Cardinal Bishop of the Suburbicarian Diocese of Velletri-Segni and he is Prefect of the CDW.  Usually the Prefects of Congregations like Doctrine of the Faith, Bishops, etc., are promoted cardinal bishops.  Also, the Dean of the College is always a cardinal bishop, and he has two titular dioceses instead of one, for he always also has Ostia.

It has come to be the practice to "promote" a cardinal deacon who has been a cardinal deacon for some years, to the dignity of cardinal priest, although he does not thereby change his titutlar church in Rome from a diaconal title to a presbyteral title.

So now we turn to the news from NLM:

At this morning’s Ordinary Public Consistory for the Canonisation of four Beati (Gaetano Errico, Maria Bernarda Bütler, Alfonsa of the Immaculate Conception, and Narcisa of Jesus Martillo Morán), the Holy Father also elevated some Cardinals from the Order of Deacons to the Order of Priests, something which Cardinal Deacons may opt for after having belonged to the Order of Deacons for ten years, according to can. 350 § 5 of the Codex Juris Canonici. Having opted for this transition with the approval of the Holy Father, the new Cardinal Priests occupy then, within the order of Priests, the precedence they would have enjoyed had they immediately been created as Cardinal Priests (can. 350 § 6).

The cardinals who have passed from the order of Deacons to that of Priests are: – Jorge Arturo Medína Estevez – Darío Castrillón Hoyos – Lorenzo Antonetti – James Francis Stafford – Giovanni Cheli Liturgically, this means we will not see these cardinals function as Cardinal Deacons in papal Masses, with dalmatics and mitres, anymore. Since Cardinal Castrillón Hoyos was, until now, Cardinal Protodeacon (i.e. the first in the Order of Deacons), whose office it is to announce the name of the newly elected Supreme Pontiff (can. 355 § 2), this office had to be reassigned. The new Cardinal Protodeacon is His Eminence Agostino Cacciavillan, former Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to the United States and former President of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See.