For Laos, Ikea – and Romero – The Scarlet Is Served

Much as the journey is the same, the scene today is rather different – for one, no prelate in his right mind would be caught dead wearing the old Cappello Romano in these times... ...yet most of all, here we go again – another crop of new cardinals drawn mostly, like the Pope who made them, "from the edge of the world."In a shift from ancient practice, the Consistory to create five voting members of the papal "Senate" will take place in the afternoon – 4pm Rome time on this Wednesday's vigil of Saints Peter and Paul. (The live video will appear here at the time, and the ritual booklet – with English translations – is already up.)Among other benefits, the change of hour ends the routine early-morning havoc around the Vatican preceding a Scarlet Bowl, as the usual crush of far-flung pilgrims would start queuing up from 2 or 3am to ensure their spots in the Basilica. In any event, given the size of the crop – the smallest since Blessed Paul VI inducted four with his final class in 1977 (four decades ago this week) – the logistics are much more manageable than with the "mega-Consistories" elevating a dozen or more Porporati, which've been the usual case over recent decades.That said, for the second time running, the entire College has not been summoned to Rome for this week's doings, and the daylong consultation both Francis and Benedict XVI have usually held with the body likewise won't take place again.While no one should be surprised that the session's absence has been ideologized in some quarters, in reality the rationale is the result of Francis' procrastination. Unlike the pontiff's first two classes – which were slated several months in advance – both last November's intake and this one were decided upon at the last minute, and having once been a cardinal across an ocean with better things to do than upend a full schedule for a long flight to Rome and a week away, convoking the global College on a month's notice is a practice the Pope has been determined to avoid.As an example of the haul, though many US and Latin American red-hats have direct flights or something close, among more recent creations, Tonga's Cardinal Soane Paini Mafi – the first ecclesial "prince" to be given the island's minority fold of 15,000 Catholics – has to make three or four connections over a 24-hour trip, and indeed collapsed while making the journey last April.Yet speaking of the "peripheries" which form this pontificate's philosophical core, this Consistory marks a particularly salient milestone: while Francis will have chosen forty percent of his successor's eventual electors once the new crop's names are formally pronounced at the rites, another stat puts the new shape of things in an even clearer context – with this class' additions of Mali, Sweden, Laos and El Salvador, Papa Bergoglio has named 13 cardinals with voting rights who are each the first representatives of their home-countries in the College.In other words, that group now comprises more than 10 percent of the total electorate for the first time.Still, even that doesn't completely put the ramifications of this shift in full light... one needs a completely different angle of looking at it.Over days like these, the world is told almost ad nauseam that the College of Cardinals "chooses the next Pope." The actual point, however, lies elsewhere: one of them will be the next Pope. And when you remember how Conclave Math works, even if nothing else changes after this morning, the "shape of the pieces" next time has already shattered the mould from anything that's preceded it.-30-