The College of Cardinals

Etymology: cardo, the hinge

The word cardinal comes from the Latin cardo, cardinis, which designates the hinge or pivot on which a door turns. Applied to the clergy, this term means a cleric incardinated in a stable and essential way in a given church — as opposed to itinerant or supernumerary clergy^[19]. From late antiquity onward, the adjective cardinalis thus designates the clerics of Rome durably attached, by incardination, to a specific titular church, regional deaconry or suburbicarian see — the "hinges" on which the daily government of the Bishop of Rome literally turned. This image of the hinge already announces, before any institutional development, the function the cardinals would exercise for two millennia: to remain the stable point of support around which the government of the Roman Church is articulated, including — and above all — when the see of Peter is vacant.

The cardinalate, distinct from holy orders

Canon 351 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law specifies that those chosen as cardinals are "men who have been at least ordained priests, outstanding in doctrine, morals, piety and prudence in action"^[20]. Since the motu proprio Cum gravissima of John XXIII, in 1962, all cardinals — whatever the order to which they belong within the College — must also have received episcopal consecration, unless expressly dispensed by the pope^[21]. But this condition does not make the cardinalate a fourth degree of the sacrament of orders: unlike the episcopate, the presbyterate and the diaconate, which go back to apostolic institution and are conferred by sacramental ordination, the title of cardinal is an ecclesiastical office instituted by the Church herself, which she may modify, extend or reorganise according to the needs of her government — as she has constantly done for a thousand years.

The regional deacons and the care of the poor

Around the middle of the third century, Pope Fabian (236–250) divides Rome into seven administrative regions and entrusts to one deacon the charge of each of them: relief of the poor, maintenance of the cemeteries, preservation of the acts of the martyrs^[22]. The Liber Pontificalis, the principal biographical source on the first popes, reports that Fabian "divided the regions among the deacons"^[23]. This system of the seven regional deaconries endures for centuries: to these seven deacons are later added "palatine" deacons attached to the pope's direct liturgical service, bringing their total number to eighteen in the early Middle Ages^[24]. These deacons, by reason of their constant closeness to the Bishop of Rome and their charitable representative office, acquire over the centuries an influence disproportionate to their hierarchical rank in the Church — an influence that explains why, still today, the solemn announcement of the election of a new pope traditionally falls to the senior of the cardinal-deacons, the protodeacon.

The priests of the Roman titles

In parallel, the priests responsible for the principal neighbourhood churches of Rome — called tituli because they bore, engraved on a plaque, the name (titulus) of their founder or original owner — form the second nucleus of the future College. The Liber Pontificalis attributes to Pope Marcellus (308–309) the organisation of twenty-five titles in Rome, "as so many dioceses, for baptism and penance"^[25]. Only the most senior priest of each title, the archipresbyter, bears the qualifier cardinalis: he ensures regular celebration, the custody of relics, the administration of the sacraments in his sector of the city, under the direct authority of the Bishop of Rome. These cardinal priests of the titles constitute the embryo of the future presbyteral order of the College, the one that today gathers the great majority of the cardinals of the whole world — almost all archbishops of major dioceses created cardinals still receive, even today, the title of one of these ancient or medieval Roman churches.

The suburbicarian bishops

The third group is the latest to be aggregated: the bishops of the episcopal sees closest to Rome — known as suburbicarian, because situated "under" (sub) the city — make a habit, from the eighth century onward, of assisting the pope in liturgical celebration and taking part in his counsels^[26]. Seven suburbicarian sees are thus historically attached to the cardinalitial college: Ostia, Porto-Santa Rufina, Albano, Frascati (Tusculum), Palestrina (Praeneste), Sabina-Poggio Mirteto and Velletri-Segni^[27]. The Bishop of Ostia, the ancient port of Rome on the Tiber, holds a particular rank among them: it is traditionally he who, since the early Middle Ages, consecrates the new pope when the latter is not yet a bishop at the time of his election — a function that canon 355 of the 1983 Code today attributes to the Dean of the College, systematically holder of the see of Ostia since a reform of 1914^[28].

These three groups — regional deacons, priests of the titles, suburbicarian bishops — long remain mere liturgical and administrative collaborators of the Bishop of Rome, without any electoral function of their own: until the eleventh century, the election of the pope remains, in theory, the affair of the clergy and people of Rome as a whole, under the growing influence, in practice, of the emperor or of the great Roman aristocratic families. It is the crisis of simony and lay interference of the eleventh century that will transform this local clergy into an electoral college in the strict sense.

1059: In Nomine Domini reserves the election to the cardinals

In the mid-11th century, the papacy was going through a deep crisis: the great Roman families and the German emperor regularly interfered in the choice of the pope, encouraging simony — the buying of ecclesiastical offices — and lay interference in the spiritual government of the Church. Under the influence of the monk Hildebrand, the future Pope Gregory VII, Pope Nicholas II promulgated on 13 April 1059 the decree In Nomine Domini, which placed the papal election for the first time solely in the hands of the cardinals^[29]. The text prescribed that the cardinal-bishops, the pontiff's closest collaborators, should first deliberate together on the name to retain, then communicate their choice to the cardinal-priests and cardinal-deacons to obtain their assent, before presenting that name to the rest of the clergy and to the Roman people^[30]. The decree, confirmed by the synod of Melfi held from 3 to 23 August 1059, retroactively validated the election of Nicholas II himself, contested by part of the Roman aristocracy, while establishing for the future a procedure designed to shut out simony and imperial pressure^[31].

1150: the formation of the Sacred College under Eugene III

It was under the pontificate of Eugene III (1145–1153), a disciple of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, that the cardinals were structured for the first time, around 1150, into an institutional body designated as the Sacrum Collegium — the "Sacred College"^[32]. This name, which would remain in use until the 1983 reform of canon law, marks the transition from a simple clergy close to the pope to a genuine corporate institution endowed with its own prerogatives, internal precedence, and a collective awareness of its role in the government of the Church.

1179: Lateran III and the two-thirds majority

A century earlier, the election reserved to the cardinal-bishops alone by Nicholas II had nearly caused a new schism: on the death of Adrian IV in 1159, one part of the College elected Alexander III while a minority, backed by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, elected an antipope^[33]. The Peace of Venice of 1177 put an end to this schism and definitively recognized Alexander III as the legitimate pope. Two years later, assembled at the Third Lateran Council (1179), Alexander III promulgated the constitution Licet de vitanda, which extended the right to vote to the three orders of the College — bishops, priests, and deacons alike — but henceforth required, for the validity of the election, a two-thirds majority of the votes^[34]. This two-thirds rule, designed to give the pope-elect unassailable legitimacy even in the absence of some cardinals, remains to this day the qualified-majority rule required in every conclave^[35].

1274: Ubi periculum and the institution of the conclave

The death of Clement IV in 1268 opened a vacancy of the Apostolic See that would last nearly three years: gathered at Viterbo, the cardinals, divided between French and Italian factions, failed to agree on a name. Exasperated by this paralysis, the municipal authorities of Viterbo had the roof of the palace where the cardinals were sitting removed and cut their provisions, hoping to force a decision^[36]. The election of Gregory X, in September 1271, ended this unprecedented crisis; once pope, he immediately drew the lessons of the episode. Assembled at the Second Council of Lyons, he promulgated on 7 July 1274 the constitution Ubi periculum, which established for the future the conclave — from the Latin cum clave, "under lock and key" — as the mandatory procedure for papal elections^[37].

The text imposed the strict enclosure of the cardinals in a single closed place, with no communication with the outside world, and provided for progressive penalties intended to speed their decision: beyond three days without an election, the cardinals' meals were reduced to a single dish; after eight days, they received nothing but bread, water, and a little wine, and their ecclesiastical revenues were suspended until a new pope was elected^[38]. This discipline, medieval in its severity, would be successively softened over the centuries, but the very principle of collective enclosure, literally "under lock and key," remains the matrix of the procedure still applied today in the Sistine Chapel.

Canon 350 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law confirms the distribution inherited from ancient Rome: "The College of Cardinals is divided into three orders: the episcopal order, to which belong those cardinals to whom the Roman Pontiff assigns the title of a suburbicarian church, as well as the Eastern patriarchs admitted into the College of Cardinals; the presbyteral order; and the diaconal order"^[39]. This internal hierarchy, purely a matter of protocol since the 1962 reform that made all cardinals bishops, nevertheless continues to structure precedence, the Roman titles assigned, and certain precise ceremonial functions.

Since the motu proprio Ad Purpuratorum Patrum Collegium of Paul VI, promulgated on 11 February 1965, the patriarchs of the Eastern Catholic Churches raised to the cardinalate have been integrated into the episcopal order, while retaining their own patriarchal see rather than a Roman suburbicarian diocese^[40]. This reform recognizes the distinct character of the great Eastern Churches united with Rome — Melkite, Maronite, Syriac, Chaldean, Armenian — without simply assimilating them to the Latin model of the suburbicarian sees.

Each cardinal-priest or cardinal-deacon receives, at the moment of his creation, a Roman title or deaconry — that is, he officially becomes, in a purely symbolic way, the holder of a specific church in the city of Rome^[41]. This bond, inherited directly from the ancient incardination of Rome's priests to their titulus, recalls that the cardinalate remains, in its juridical essence, an attachment to the clergy of the Bishop of Rome: an African, Asian, or American cardinal remains, in the strictest canonical sense, a cleric "incardinated" in the Church of Rome for the duration of his office. A few weeks or months after his creation, the new cardinal goes to "his" Roman church for a taking-possession ceremony: the parish priest reads out the pontifical bull of appointment, and the cardinal presides over a solemn Mass there^[42].

Until the end of the 16th century, the membership of the College of Cardinals fluctuated freely with pontifical creations, sometimes reaching dozens of members and provoking recurring criticism of the inflation of cardinalatial titles. Pope Sixtus V (1585–1590), an energetic reformer of the Roman Curia, settled the question with the bull Postquam verus, promulgated on 3 December 1586: it henceforth fixed the number of cardinals at exactly seventy — six cardinal-bishops, fifty cardinal-priests, and fourteen cardinal-deacons — and declared null and void any appointment exceeding that ceiling^[43].

Sixtus V explicitly justified this number by a scriptural reference: the number seventy echoes that of the elders of Israel chosen by Moses to share with him the government of the Hebrew people, at the order of God himself^[44].

"Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel [...]. I will take some of the spirit that is upon you and put it upon them; they shall bear with you the burden of this people, and you shall no longer bear it alone." — Book of Numbers, 11:16–17

Far from being a mere literary flourish, this biblical reference inscribes the College of Cardinals in a long theological tradition of shared government: just as Moses, the sole leader of the chosen people, received the help of seventy collaborators chosen to bear with him the weight of his charge, the pope, the sole head of the people of God, surrounds himself with a college of counsellors called to share his pastoral burden without ever taking the place of his own authority. The symbolically charged number of seventy would remain the canonical norm of the College for nearly four centuries, until John XXIII deliberately broke through that ceiling in 1958.

John XXIII and the break of 1958

The ceiling fixed by Sixtus V, taken up unchanged by the first Code of Canon Law of 1917, held until the mid-20th century. At the consistory of 15 December 1958, Pope John XXIII, freshly elected, deliberately broke the seventy-member rule in place since 1586, judging that the growth of the Catholic Church worldwide demanded a larger and more representative college^[45]. A few years later, on 15 April 1962, the same pope promulgated the motu proprio Cum gravissima, whose Latin incipit — "Cum gravissima sint munera Sacro Cardinalium Collegio concredita," that is, "since the charges entrusted to the Sacred College of Cardinals are of the utmost gravity" — required that all cardinals, without exception as to order, henceforth receive episcopal consecration^[46]. Before this reform, only cardinal-bishops and, since 1917, cardinals having received at least priestly ordination were required; the twelve cardinals not yet bishops at the time of promulgation were hastily consecrated, on 19 April 1962, to comply with the new norm^[47].

Paul VI: the age limit and the cap of one hundred and twenty electors

The successor of John XXIII, Paul VI, continued and amplified this structural reform of the College. By the motu proprio Ingravescentem Aetatem, dated 21 November 1970, he laid down that a cardinal having completed his eightieth year ceases to belong to the dicasteries of the Roman Curia and, above all, loses the right to enter the conclave to elect the pope^[48]. This reform, motivated by the concern to entrust so heavy a responsibility to men in full possession of their faculties, marked a clean break with the earlier tradition, in which cardinalatial seniority knew no functional age limit. Five years later, by the 1975 apostolic constitution Romano Pontifici Eligendo, Paul VI further fixed at one hundred and twenty the maximum number of cardinal electors eligible to take part in a conclave — a ceiling which concerns, it should be clearly noted, only the electors under eighty years of age, not the College as a whole, whose total membership may far exceed that figure^[49].

John Paul II and Universi Dominici Gregis

On 22 February 1996, Pope John Paul II promulgated the apostolic constitution Universi Dominici Gregis, which restates, codifies, and updates all earlier legislation on the vacancy of the Apostolic See and the election of the pope, abrogating Romano Pontifici Eligendo while confirming its essential principles^[50]. The text explicitly confirms that "the maximum number of cardinal electors must not exceed one hundred and twenty"^[51], reaffirms the two-thirds rule for the validity of the election^[52], and innovates by providing for the lodging of all the cardinal electors at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, a residence built for that purpose in Vatican City, where they remain isolated from the outside world for the whole duration of the conclave^[53].

Francis and the Geographical Expansion of the College

The most recent pontificates have seen the total number of cardinals, electors and non-electors combined, grow far beyond the ceiling of one hundred and twenty electors alone, since that ceiling has only ever concerned those entitled to vote. At the consistory of 7–8 December 2024, the tenth and final creation consistory of Pope Francis, he elevated twenty-one new cardinals, bringing the College to two hundred and fifty-three members, including one hundred and forty electors — a historic record, never reached since the reform of Paul VI^[54]. This consistory illustrates the geographical diversification sought by Francis: Serbia then received its first cardinal in history, in the person of the Archbishop of Belgrade, Ladislav Nemet^[55], and the Archbishop of Tehran-Isfahan, Dominique Mathieu, became the first cardinal to reside in Iran in the modern era^[56]. The Archbishop of Algiers, Jean-Paul Vesco, the only Frenchman of the intake, sits in the line of Cardinal Duval, Archbishop of Algiers created cardinal in 1965^[57]. The youngest cardinal of this creation, Mykola Bychok, Ukrainian Archbishop of Melbourne, was then forty-four years old; the oldest, the Italian Angelo Acerbi, ninety-nine^[58]. This policy of numerous and geographically diversified creations, begun at the very start of the pontificate of Francis in 2013, deliberately reduced the relative weight of the European continent within the College: on 22 February 2014, Europe lost for the first time in its history the absolute majority of cardinal electors^[59].

The Required Conditions

Canon 351 of the Code of Canon Law states that "the Roman Pontiff freely chooses men who have been at least ordained priests, outstanding in doctrine, morals, piety and prudence in action"; if they are not already bishops, they must receive episcopal consecration^[60]. The pope is bound by no rule of nationality, office or career path: while the great majority of cardinals are archbishops of major dioceses or heads of Roman dicasteries, history also knows theologians, religious or elderly priests raised to the cardinalate for their personal merits, without any particular office of government. Canon 351 §3 further provides for the exceptional possibility of creating a cardinal in pectore — literally "in the breast", that is, whose name is kept secret by the pope and not published^[61]. A cardinal so created exercises no rights or obligations while his name remains secret; if the pope does not reveal it before his own death, the creation lapses^[62]. The procedure, attested since the sixteenth century, most often serves to protect a bishop exercising his ministry in a country hostile to Christianity: John Paul II resorted to it, for example, at the consistory of February 1998 for two archbishops of Eastern Europe, whose names were not revealed until 2001^[63].

The Consistory of Creation

A cardinal is "created", in traditional canonical language, by a decree of the pope made public during an ordinary public consistory — one of the rare occasions when, alongside the cardinals, invited prelates and representatives of civil society sit together^[64]. Canon 353 precisely distinguishes the types of consistories:

"The Cardinals assist the Supreme Pastor of the Church through collegial action, especially in the Consistories in which they are gathered by order and under the presidency of the Roman Pontiff; Consistories are ordinary or extraordinary. To an ordinary Consistory are summoned all the Cardinals, at least those who are in Rome [...]. To an extraordinary Consistory [...] all the Cardinals are summoned. Only the ordinary Consistory at which certain solemnities are celebrated can be public." — Code of Canon Law, can. 353^[65]

At the consistory of creation, the new cardinal receives from the pope the red biretta and the ring — symbols of his dignity and of his union with the See of Peter. Until 1969, the ceremony also included the imposition of the galero, a broad red hat with tassels, last solemnly bestowed by Paul VI at the consistory of 26 June 1967^[66]. The instruction Ut sive sollicite, approved by Paul VI and published on 31 March 1969, abolished this ceremony of the red hat, henceforth reduced to a purely symbolic heraldic device appearing on cardinals' coats of arms^[67].

The Obligation of Residence and Cooperation

Canon 356 imposes on cardinals a duty of constant availability to the pope:

"Cardinals are bound by the obligation of cooperating closely with the Roman Pontiff; thus, Cardinals who exercise any office whatever in the Curia and who are not Diocesan Bishops are bound by the obligation of residing in Rome; Cardinals who have charge of a diocese as Diocesan Bishops are to come to Rome whenever they are summoned by the Roman Pontiff." — Code of Canon Law, can. 356^[68]

This twofold obligation — strict residence for cardinals of the Curia, permanent availability for cardinal-archbishops serving in their dioceses — gives juridical expression to the bond of symbolic incardination mentioned above: whatever his actual place of service, a cardinal remains, by vocation, a collaborator of the pope who can be summoned at any moment.

The Camerlengo and the Offices of the College

Among the cardinals, certain offices belong to the collegial functioning of the institution. The Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church presides over the Apostolic Camera, charged with the administration of the temporal goods of the Holy See during the vacancy of the Apostolic See; the current Camerlengo, the Irish-American Cardinal Kevin Farrell, was appointed to this office by Francis on 14 February 2019^[69]. It was he who, in April 2025, officially ascertained the death of Pope Francis, sealed his private apartment and broke the Fisherman's Ring, the traditional symbol of the vacancy of the pontifical see^[70]. The Camerlengo nevertheless holds no power of spiritual government: his role is limited to administrative management and the material preparation of the conclave, under the collegial authority of all the cardinals gathered in congregations.

Strictly Limited Powers During the Vacancy

During the period of vacancy of the Apostolic See — between the death or resignation of a pope and the election of his successor — the government of the Church is entrusted to the College of Cardinals gathered in general congregations, but within limits very strictly defined by canon law and by Universi Dominici Gregis. Canon 335 and the 1996 constitution specify that the College may dispatch only current or urgent business, never encroaching on the prerogatives reserved to the Roman Pontiff himself, nor altering the norms of the forthcoming election^[71]. Excluded from its competence during this period are, in particular, any new doctrinal decision, any definitive episcopal appointment, any canonization, and more generally any act that would commit the Church for the future beyond simple ordinary administration.

This deliberate limitation expresses a profound theological conviction: the College of Cardinals, however extensive its consultative and electoral role may be, is never a substitute for the pope. Structurally, it exists only to prepare and accomplish the election of a new successor of Peter, not to exercise in his place the charism proper to pontifical primacy. It is within this restricted framework that the general congregations take place — daily meetings of all the cardinals, electors and non-electors together, at which the current business of the Church is settled and the practical arrangements of the forthcoming conclave are decided — and the particular congregations, formed of the Camerlengo and three assistant cardinals drawn by lot and renewed every three days, charged with the most urgent decisions between two general meetings.

The Medieval Legacy of Enclosure

The procedure of the modern conclave, solemn and codified as it has become, remains the direct heir of the emergency discipline instituted by Gregory X in 1274: the collective enclosure of the cardinal electors, cut off from all communication with the outside world, until a qualified majority emerges around one name. While the dietary sanctions provided for by Ubi periculum have long since disappeared, the very principle of closed doors — today in the Sistine Chapel, beneath the frescoes of Michelangelo — remains the guarantee of the cardinals' freedom of vote, sheltered from all external pressure, whether political or media-driven.

The Secret Ballot Instituted by Gregory XV

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, conclaves remained the scene of corridor manoeuvres, influenceable public votes and interference by the great Catholic powers. Pope Gregory XV put this in order through two successive texts: the bull Aeterni Patris Filius, of 15 November 1621, which henceforth authorized only three modes of election — secret ballot, compromise and "quasi-inspiration" — and required each cardinal elector to vote by secret ballot for a single name, without being able to vote for himself^[72]; then the bull Decet Romanum Pontificem, of 12 March 1622, which meticulously detailed the ceremonial of these three modes of ballot^[73]. These two texts formed, for nearly three centuries, the juridical backbone of every pontifical election.

The Monarchs' Veto and Its Abolition in 1904

From the sixteenth to the early twentieth century, several Catholic monarchies — France, Spain and the Austrian Empire — claimed an informal right of veto, the jus exclusivae, allowing them to exclude in advance a candidate deemed undesirable. The most sensational case occurred at the conclave of 1903: the Austrian Cardinal Jan Puzyna de Kosielsko, in the name of Emperor Franz Joseph, opposed his veto to Cardinal Secretary of State Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro, then the favourite of the conclave, opening the way to the election of Cardinal Giuseppe Sarto, who took the name of Pius X^[74]. Barely six months after his election, Pius X put an end, through the apostolic constitution Commissum Nobis of 20 January 1904, to this practice never recognized by the Church: the text forbade not only the exercise of the veto, but even its mere expression as a "wish", under pain of automatic excommunication for anyone, cardinal or layman, who would risk it^[75].

The current procedure

Today, only cardinal electors under the age of eighty, within the limit of one hundred and twenty — a ceiling occasionally exceeded in recent creations — take part in the conclave. Each cardinal elector takes a solemn oath before entering the conclave:

"[...] to observe with the greatest fidelity [...] secrecy regarding everything connected in any way with the election [...]." — John Paul II, Universi Dominici Gregis, 22 February 1996, oath formula of the cardinal electors^[76]

This secrecy remains binding even after the election, unless explicitly authorized by the new pontiff. Voting takes place by means of printed ballots bearing the Latin formula Eligo in Summum Pontificem ("I elect as Supreme Pontiff"), and the election is valid only with a qualified two-thirds majority of the votes cast^[77], the direct heir of the rule laid down by the Third Lateran Council in 1179. After each unsuccessful ballot, the papers are burned with a chemical additive producing black smoke; when one name obtains the required majority, the smoke turns white, announcing to the whole world — since 2005, accompanied by the ringing of bells — that a new pope has just been elected.

The Dean: presiding without governing

The Dean of the College of Cardinals, elected by the cardinal holders of the suburbicarian sees alone and confirmed by the pope, presides over the meetings of the College without holding any power of government over its members^[78]. Since a reform of 1914, under the pontificate of Pius X, the Dean systematically receives the suburbicarian see of Ostia, which he holds together with the diocese he already held when elected Dean^[79]. Canon 355 assigns him a decisive ceremonial function: it falls to him, or failing that to the Vice-Dean, to ordain as bishop the newly elected pope, if the latter was not already a bishop at the time of his election^[80]. The Italian cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, over eighty years of age, has held this office since 2020; because of his age, he was unable, like his Vice-Dean Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, to take part himself in the conclave of April–May 2025 which elected Leo XIV^[81].

The Protodeacon and the announcement of the election

The Cardinal Protodeacon, dean of the diaconal order, exercises a symmetrical but public function: canon 355 §2 entrusts him with the solemn announcement, from the Benediction Loggia of Saint Peter's Basilica, of the name of the newly elected pope^[82]. It is he who pronounces the traditional Latin formula which has closed every conclave since the Middle Ages:

"Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum: habemus Papam!" — "I announce to you a great joy: we have a pope!" — Ritual formula of the Protodeacon, Ordo Rituum Conclavis, art. 74^[83]

This announcement is followed by the baptismal name of the elected cardinal, his family name and the pontifical name he has chosen. Attested as early as the election of Martin V in 1417 and used without interruption since that of Innocent VIII in 1484, it is partly inspired by the announcement made by the angel to the shepherds in the Gospel of Luke — a deliberate parallel between the "great joy" of the Nativity and that of the election of a new successor of Peter^[84]. It is, by contrast, the Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations who, once the oath has been taken by the last of the cardinal electors, pronounces in the Sistine Chapel the famous command Extra omnes — "Everyone out" — by which every person outside the electoral college is invited to leave before the doors are closed^[85].

At the close of the tenth and final creation consistory of Francis, on 8 December 2024, the College of Cardinals numbered 253 members in total, including 140 electors under eighty years of age and 113 non-electors^[86]. This proportion changes mechanically over the months: each cardinal elector who passes the age of eighty automatically moves into the category of non-electors, with no new creation offsetting this attrition until the reigning pope convenes a new ordinary public consistory. Elected on 8 May 2025 following the death of Pope Francis, Pope Leo XIV had, by mid-2026, convened only extraordinary consistories — on 7–8 January 2026, then on 26–27 June 2026 — devoted to collegial reflection and synodal listening to the cardinals, without creating new members of the College^[87].

This demographic shift reflects a deliberate policy, begun by John Paul II and expanded by Francis, of geographical diversification of the College: while Europe still held, at the turn of the 2010s, an absolute majority of cardinal electors, it lost it irreversibly on 22 February 2014^[88]. The 21st-century College of Cardinals thus reflects, far better than that of previous centuries, the real worldwide distribution of Catholic faithful — Africa, Asia and Latin America occupying a growing place within it, in keeping with the universal vocation the Catholic Church has claimed since the Acts of the Apostles.

Beyond its purely electoral function, the College of Cardinals expresses, in its very structure, a constant theological conviction of the Catholic Church: the supreme government of the Church, although entrusted in the last resort to a single man — the successor of Peter — is normally exercised in communion with a body of advisers closely associated with his office. This intuition, already present in the choice of the seventy elders by Moses taken up by Sixtus V, finds an ancient echo in the figure of Saint Peter Damian (1007–1072), a Camaldolese monk who became cardinal-bishop of Ostia under Pope Stephen IX in 1057 and one of the great figures of the Gregorian reform which was to lead, precisely two years later, to the decree In Nomine Domini of 1059^[89]. Canonized by popular veneration and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1828, Peter Damian embodies, in the very history of the nascent College, the conjunction of personal holiness, canonical rigor and selfless service of the See of Peter — a model constantly held up to successive cardinals, of whom canon 351 still requires, today, that they be "outstanding in doctrine, virtue, piety and prudence in practical matters"^[90].

The concrete bond each cardinal retains with a specific church in Rome — title, deaconry or suburbicarian see — is therefore not a mere protocolar archaism: it permanently recalls that the universal government of the Catholic Church remains rooted, from the beginning, in the particular Church of Rome, where the apostle Peter gave his life and where his successors continue, twenty centuries later, to "strengthen their brothers in the faith" (cf. Lk 22:32) surrounded by a college of collaborators chosen to bear with them, in the very words of Scripture applied by Sixtus V, "the burden of the people".

• Read The Vatican: the hill, the sovereign State and the seat of the central government of the Church, of which the College of Cardinals is one of the institutions.
• Read The creation of Vatican City State (11 February 1929) and The Lateran Agreements (11 February 1929): the diplomatic history of Vatican sovereignty.
• Read The Holy See, The Roman Curia and The Secretariat of State: the other institutions of the central government of the Catholic Church.