Vincent Nichols to become Cardinal comment
Release Date 21 February 2014
Dr Rebecca Rist, papal expert from the University of Reading, examines some of the key issues surrounding Vincent Nichols becoming a Cardinal on Sunday 23 February.
Why not in 2009? Benedict influenced by 'conservative' factions in the curia
"This is an important statement about how The Vatican now sees the Church in the UK. It was always telling that Rome did not make Vincent Nichols a Cardinal in 2009, when it had been automatic for his predecessors as Archbishop. During Benedict XVI's pontificate 'conservative' factions within the Church may have urged the Pope not to grant Nichols the cardinal's hat. There was criticism that Nichols did not close down the Soho masses for homosexual people soon enough and that he had too broad an interest in non-Christian faith groups manifested, for example, when in November 2009, he offered flowers at the altar to the deities during a visit to the Hindu Temple in Neasden."
"There were rumours he was not known to be a fan of the Ordinariate - Benedict's initiative to bring Anglicans into the Catholic Church. The rather flimsy reasoning that Nichols could not be a Cardinal, while his predecessor Cormac Murphy O'Connor had a vote at the next conclave to elect a Pope, ceased to be significant when Cormac turned 80 in 2012 and was no longer able to vote."
Why now? A new Pope brought new hope
"Pope Francis is now sending a signal he has full confidence in Nichols. He has already replaced Cormac as a member of the influential Congregation for Bishops, the department of the Roman Curia that oversees the selection of most new bishops. Nichols shows a strong desire to maintain traditional Catholic teaching on controversial issues such as homosexuality, combined with a more 'pastoral' approach to its application. His urgency and sorrow in tackling the toxic legacy of child abuse echoes pronouncements of both Benedict XVI and Francis I, while his pro-Church reform appeals in particular to the new regime of Francis I."
A future Pope?
"Talk of him being a future Pope is overblown. It's almost 1000 years since Adrian I, the one and only English pontiff, while Pope Francis is now laying the groundwork for successors from South America and Africa. But it rights a sense of injustice many of the four million Catholics in England and Wales would have felt about their leader not being a Cardinal."
A politically savvy Cardinal
"Nichols has played a canny political and media game this week. His critique of welfare policy is not just in the tradition of Catholic social teaching but deliberately echo Pope Francis' pronouncements about protecting the most vulnerable people in society. Nichols is savvy enough to know that the spotlight gives him the perfect opportunity to do his pastoral duty as archbishop in emphasising the needs of the poor. Headlines about the Church taking on the secular State will have gone down well in Rome."