WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- Pope Benedict XVI's first appointments to the College of Cardinals this week include some strongly political choices reflecting the direction and priorities of his papacy. Three of the 15 new cardinals are in Asia and eight in Europe. The pope has already given indications that improving relations with China is a priority of his pontificate, and the appointment of 74-year-old Bishop Joseph Zen Zekiun of Hong Kong underlines that interest. The fact that Pope Benedict has made him a cardinal, Zen said following his elevation. "shows his priority for China."
The Chinese government can hardly be too pleased with Zen's appointment. He has been an outspoken critic of the regime's poor human rights record and Beijing's harassment of the priests and members of the "underground" Catholic Church which recognizes the authority of the pope, as opposed to the state-sanctioned Catholic Patriotic Association, which does not. It's different in Hong Kong, where the Catholic Church is allowed to exist without state interference (Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tseng, effectively Beijing's man in the former British colony, is a devout Catholic.) Cardinal-designate Zen will be a highly visible reminder of the church's constraints on the mainland.
According to Vatican estimates, there are about five million Catholics in the state-controlled church, and at least another eight million clandestine worshippers, although their real number is not known. But in the past few years a strong informal connection has developed between the two churches. Recently, the consecration of a bishop in the church that is in communion with Rome was attended by fellow-bishops from the "official" Catholic Church. It is this improved internal atmosphere that has raised hopes in both the Vatican and Beijing that diplomatic relations, broken off in 1951 shortly after the Communists assumed power, can be resumed. However, according to a Vatican source familiar with the situation, the intermittent talks have yet to overcome the main issue of papal authority and Vatican control. The fact that Vatican experts regard Asia as the new frontier for evangelization inevitably put the communist regime on the defensive.
The cardinals will receive their bright red hats, the symbol of their authority, in a ceremony in St Peter's Basilica on March 23. Pope Benedict, who described them this week as "a sort of senate around the pope," also named Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales of Manila a cardinal. The timing of that nomination was not missed in the Philippines: this week happens to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1986 People Power revolution that removed President Ferdinand Marcos from office. Rosales's predecessor, Cardinal Jaime Sin had played a key role in preventing bloodshed in the revolt by marching at the head of the huge demonstrations that confronted the Army tanks. The third Asian cardinal is Archbishop Nicholas Cheong Jin-Suk of Seoul, South Korea.
Also high on the German-born pontiff's agenda is the re-evangelization of Europe, which he feels has drifted away from Christian values. His European appointments included creating cardinals in three major European cities -- Jean-Pierre Ricard, the archbishop of Bordeaux, France, Archbishop Carlo Caffaro of Bologna, Italy, and Antonio Canizares Llovena, archbishop of Toledo, Spain. Last year, Canizares was largely responsible for organizing the Spanish church's ultimately unsuccessful opposition to the introduction of new laws in Spain allowing same-sex marriages, and easing the legal restrictions on divorce and abortions -- all measures strongly denounced by the pope.
The pope's other "political" appointment was the elevation of the archbishop of Caracas, Venezuela, Jorge Liberator Urosa Savino, who took over the archdiocese in November. Savino has sought to defuse the tension between the Catholic Church in Venezuela and President Hugo Chavez. At the height of Chavez's verbal battles with Savino's predecessor, Chavez called the church "a tumor" that had to be removed. But Savino has taken steps to improve church-state relations. He has, for example, issued an instruction to priests not to preach political sermons.
Cardinals have to be younger then 80 years old to participate in the conclave that elects the pope. Currently, the electors in the Sacred College total 110. Three of the new princes of the church, as they are sometimes called, are already over 80, and two more of those who are cardinals already will reach that age before the new appointments are formally received into the College. This brings the number of cardinal-electors to 120, and the total number to 193.
