CARDINAL (Lat. cardinalis), in the Roman Church, the title of the highest dignitaries next to the pope. The cardinals constitute the council or senate of the sovereign pontiff, his auxiliaries in the general government of the Church; it is they who act as administrators of the Church during a vacancy of the Holy See and elect the new pope. Together they constitute a spiritual body called the Sacred College. The dignity of cardinal is not an essential part of the legal constitution of the Church; it is a reflection of and participation in the sovereign dignity of the Head of the Church, by the chief clergy of the Church of Rome. The present position is the result of a long process of evolution, of which there are several interesting survivals.
The name is derived from cardo, hinge; like many other words (the word pope in particular) it was originally of a more general application, before it was reserved exclusively to the members of the Sacred College, and the word is still used adjectivally in the sense of pre-eminent or that on which everything else “hinges.” As early as the 6th century we find mentioned, in the letters of St Gregory, cardinal bishops and priests. This expression signifies clergy who are attached to their particular church in a stable relation, as a door is attached to a building by its hinges (see Thomassin, Vetus et nova discipl. vol. 1, lib. ii. cap. 113-115). Moreover, this sense is still preserved in the present day in the expressions incardinatio, excardinatio, which signify the act by which a bishop permanently attaches a foreign cleric to his diocese, or allows one of his own clergy to leave his diocese in order to belong to another. For a long time, too, the superior clergy, and especially the canons of cathedrals or the heads of important churches, were cardinales (see examples in Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v.). Gradually, however, this title was confined by usage to the Roman cardinals, until Pius V., by his constitution of the 15th of February 1568, reserved it to them exclusively.
The grouping of the cardinals into a body called the Sacred College, the College of Cardinals, is connected, in the case at least of cardinal priests, with the ancient presbyterium, which existed in each church from the earliest times. The Sacred College. The Sacred College as such was not, however, definitively constituted until the uniting of the three orders of cardinals into a single body, the body which was to elect the pope; and this only took place in the 12th century. Up till that time the elements remained distinct, and there were separate classes: the “Roman” bishops, i.e. bishops of sees near Rome, presbyters of the “titles” (tituli) of Rome, and deacons of the Roman Church. Nowadays, the Sacred College is still composed of three orders or categories: cardinal bishops, cardinal priests, and cardinal deacons. But the process of evolution has not been the same in the case of all these orders.
Cardinal bishops are the bishops of suburbicarian churches, situated in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome. Very early we find them assisting the pope in his ritual functions and in dealing with important business; Cardinal bishops. they formed a kind of permanent synod (cf. the σύνοδος ἐνδημοῦσα of Constantinople): and they also took the place of the pope in the ceremonies of the liturgy, excepting the most important ones, and especially in the service of the cathedral at Rome, the Lateran. A passage from the life of Stephen II. (a.d. 769), in the Liber Pontificalis (ed. Duchesne, i. p. 478), shows clearly that they were seven in number and served for a week in turn: Hic constituit ut omni dominico die a septem Episcopis cardinalibus hebdomadariis, qui in ecclesia Salvatoris (the Lateran) observant, missarum solemnia super altare Beati Petri celebrarentur. They were called “cardinal bishops of the Lateran church,” as recorded by St Peter Damian in 1058 (Ep. 1, lib. ii.). Their sees are the same to-day as they were then: Ostia, Porto, Santa Rufina (Sylva Candida), Albano, Sabina, Tusculum (Frascati) and Palestrina. From time immemorial the bishop of Ostia has had the privilege of sacring the pope, and on this ground he enjoys the right of wearing the “pallium”; he is ex officio dean of the suburbicarian bishops, and consequently dean of the Sacred College. His episcopal see having been in ruins for a long time, that of Velletri has been joined to it. The second rank belongs to the bishop of Porto, who is ex officio vice-dean of the Sacred College; his episcopal see being also in ruins Calixtus II. added to it that of Santa Rufina, thus reducing the number of suburbicarian bishoprics and cardinal bishops to six; this number was adhered to by Sixtus V., and has not varied since.
The second order of cardinals is that of the cardinal priests. It represents and is a continuation of the ancient presbyterium; but in Rome the process of evolution was different from that in the other episcopal towns. In the latter, Cardinal priests. the division into parishes was but slowly accomplished; there is no authority for their existence before the year 1000; the bishop with the higher clergy, now developed into the chapter, were in residence at the cathedral, which formed, as it were, the one parish in the town. At Rome, on the contrary (and doubtless at Alexandria), certain churches, to which were attached certain districts, were at an early date entrusted to one or more priests. These churches, in which the liturgy was celebrated, or certain sacraments administered, were called tituli (titles). According to the Liber Pontificalis (ed. Duchesne, i. pp. 122, 126, 164), the titles of Rome, numbering twenty-five, were already established as early as the 1st century; this seems hardly probable, but it was certainly the case in the 5th century. The priest serving one of these churches was the priest of that title, and, similarly, the church which he served was that priest’s title. When several priests were attached to the same church, only the first, or principal one, had the title; he alone was the presbyter cardinalis. This practice explains how it is that the Roman presbyterium did not give rise to a cathedral chapter, but to cardinal priests, each attached to his title. As the higher clergy of Rome gradually acquired a more important status, the relations between the cardinal priest and the church of which he bore the title became more and more nominal; but they have never entirely ceased. Even to-day every cardinal priest has his title, a church in Rome of which he is the spiritual head, and the name of which appears in his official signature, e.g. “Herbertus tituli sanctorum Andreae et Gregorii sanctae romanae ecclesiae presbyter cardinalis Vaughan.” When the attachment of the cardinal priest to his title had become no more than a tradition, the number of cardinal titles, which in the 11th century had reached twenty-eight, was increased according to need, and it was held an honour for a church to be made titulary. The last general rearrangement of the titular churches was begun by Clement VIII. and completed by Paul V.; Leo XIII. made a title of the church of San Vitale. To-day, according to the Gerarchia Pontificia the cardinal titles number fifty-three; since the highest possible number of cardinal priests is fifty, and this number is never reached, it follows that there are always a certain number of vacant titles. The first title is that of San Lorenzo in Lucina, and the cardinal priest of the oldest standing takes the name of “first priest,” protopresbyter.
The third order of cardinals is that of the cardinal deacons. For a long time the Roman Church, faithful to the example of the primitive church at Jerusalem (Acts vi.), had only seven deacons. Their special function was the administration Cardinal deacons. of her temporal property, and particularly works of charity. Between them were divided at an early date the fourteen districts (regiones) of Rome, grouped two by two so as to constitute the seven ecclesiastical districts. Now the charitable works were carried on in establishments called diaconiae, adjoining churches which were specially appropriated to each diaconia. The connexion between the names (diaconus) and (diaconia) and the presence of a church in connexion with each diaconia gradually established for the deacons a position analogous to that of priests. In the 8th century Pope Adrian found sixteen diaconiae and founded two others (Lib. Pont. ed. Duchesne, i. p. 509); in the 12th century the cardinal deacons, who then numbered eighteen, were no longer distinguished by an ecclesiastical district, as they had formerly been, but by the name of the church connected with some diaconia (loc. cit. p. 364). By the time of Sixtus V. the connexion between a cardinal deacon and his diaconia was merely nominal. Sixtus reduced the number of cardinal deacons to fourteen; and this is still the number to-day. Except that his church is called a diaconia, and not a title, the cardinal deacon is in this respect assimilated to the cardinal priest; but he does not mention his diaconia in his official signature: e.g. “Joannes Henricus diaconus cardinalis Newman.” There are at present sixteen diaconiae, the chief being that of Santa Maria in Via lata; the cardinal deacon of longest standing takes the name of “first deacon,” protodiaconus.
Cardinals can pass from one order, title or see to another, by a process of “option.” When a suburbicarian see falls vacant, the cardinals resident at Rome have the right of “opting” for it in order of rank,—that is to say, of claiming it in consistory and receiving their promotion to it. In the same way cardinal deacons can pass after ten years to the order of priests, while retaining after their passage the rank in the Sacred College given them by the date of their promotion.
With the exception of the classes resulting from the order to which they belong, there are no distinctions between the rights of the various cardinals. As to the ordination obligatory upon them, it is that indicated in their title; cardinal bishops must naturally be bishops; for cardinal priests it is enough to have received the priesthood, though many of them are actually bishops; similarly, it is enough for cardinal deacons to have received the diaconate, though most of them are priests; cases have occurred, however, even in quite recent times, of cardinals who have only received the diaconate, e.g. Cardinal Mertel.
There is one cardinal chosen by the pope from among the Sacred College to whom is entrusted the administration of the common property; this is the cardinal camerlengo or chamberlain (camerarius). His office is an important one, for during the vacancy of the Holy See it is he who exercises all external authority, especially that connected with the Conclave.