The appointment of new cardinals: Pope Francis strengthens his legacy.

From Hermann Faerugia

Pope Francis cemented his legacy today by elevating 21 new prelates of the Catholic Church to the rank of cardinals and significantly raising the percentage of electors chosen by him who will have the right to vote for his successor.

The Roman Catholic Church has its peculiar administrative structure, which should not be equated with the modern state’s. The Roman Catholic Church has never had the auspicious vocation to be in any way tied to a democratic structure associated with that of the modern state. Its worldly missions lie elsewhere.

Its credentials and mission always impart salvific grace and instil human dignity and socio-ethical values into our contemporary world. 

Nonetheless, the now near-annual recourse to the Ordinary Public Consistory to elevate to the College of Cardinals a fresh, well-sieved chosen cohort of Church prelates inherently edges on the notion of overusing autocratic incumbent power.

In other words, the Vatican’s Ordinary Public Consistory is a public manifestation of the Supreme Pontiff to exercise his sovereign incumbent power through ritual.