A friend and occasional correspondent referred the following article to me and asked that I include it in my blog.

From the National Catholic Reporter: Global South underrepresented in college of cardinals

In naming 23 new cardinals on Wednesday, Pope Benedict XVI chose to acknowledge one bit of demographic reality, but largely ignored a much bigger one.

Americans have noted, and rightly so, that the nomination of Archbishop Daniel DiNardo in Houston accurately reflects a shift in Catholic population in the United States away from the East Coast, towards the South and Southwest. From a global point of view, however, the new crop of cardinals is remarkably unrepresentative of where Catholics are today.

To understand that, it’s essential to recall that Catholicism experienced a demographic revolution in the 20th century. In 1900, there were 266 million Catholics in the world, 200 million of whom lived in Europe and North America. Just a century later, there were 1.1 billion Catholics, only 380 million of whom were in Europe and North America, with 720 million in Latin America, Africa and Asia. The global South accounted for 25 percent of the Catholic population a century ago; today it’s 67 percent and climbing.

You wouldn’t know that, however, from looking at Benedict’s appointments. Focusing just on the 18 new cardinal-electors, meaning those under 80 with the right to vote for the next pope, ten are Europeans and two are from the United States. (Three of the five over-80 cardinals named by Benedict XVI are likewise Europeans. Had Bishop Ignacy Ludwik Jez of Poland lived to receive the honor, it would have been four of six.) After these new cardinals join the church’s most exclusive club in a Nov. 24 consistory, 60 of 121 electors will be European. Adding the cardinals from the United States and Canada, the total for the global North rises to 76 electors out of 121, meaning 63 percent.

To put this into a sound bite, two-thirds of the cardinals come from the global North, while two-thirds of the Catholic people live in the South.

Such disparities do not go unnoticed. The pope’s announcement was made at roughly 11:30 a.m. Rome time, and within a half-hour I had an e-mail from La Tercera, a newspaper in Santiago, Chile, asking for a reaction to the following question: “Two-thirds of the nominees are from Western Europe or the U.S. Why?”

Why indeed? At least three reasons suggest themselves…

This didn’t jump out at me, so thanks for the referral.

I think that the author covered the issues well, and that this was an interesting analysis.

This does bring up an interesting aside in relation to the current crisis in the Anglican Communion.

As we know, the global South is leading the charge for a traditional understanding of Christianity within the Anglican CommunionMy understanding is that global South Anglicans tend to be more Evangelical in their Churchmanship and that their “traditional” understanding of Christianity does not preclude women as clerics.. I would think that that fact is not lost on the Bishop of Rome. At the same time, the South presents its own set of problems, from Liberation Theology to challenges to celibacy, problems with overdone efforts at inculturation, and occasional failings in confronting and opposing evil.

I would wonder how many of those lessons and issues played into the mix of choices.

For more on issues confronting the Roman Catholic Church in Africa check out Christianity in Africa South of the Sahara, Roman Catholic Christianity, The Church in Africa since Vatican II from African Christianity, A History of the Christian Church in Africa.