The Consistory has been Announced!

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has announced that his first Consistory will be held on 24 March 2006 when he will add 15 new members to the Sacred College of Cardinals.

We have been asked to pray for those who are called to assist the Holy Father in governing Holy Church.

And of course, such news is a marvellous excuse for these pictures of the cardinal's hat, the galero, and Pope Pius XII bestowing the galero on a Cardinal!

The Cardinals-Designate are:

Archbishop William Levada, Archbishop-emeritus of San Francisco, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith;
Archbishop Franc Rode, C.M., Archbishop-emeritus of Ljubljana, Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life;
Archbishop Agostino Vallini, Bishop-emeritus of Albano, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura;
Archbishop Jorge Liberato Urosa Savino of Caracas;
Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales of Manila;
Archbishop Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux;
Archbishop Antonio Canizares Llovera of Toledo;
Archbishop Nicholas Cheong Jin-Suk of Seoul;
Archbishop Sean O'Malley, O.F.M. Cap. of Boston;
Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow;
Archbishop Carlo Caffara of Bologna;
Bishop Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, S.D.B of Hong Kong;
Archbishop Andrea Cordero Lanza de Montezemolo, Archpriest of St. Paul's Outside the Walls;
Archbishop-emeritus Peter Proeku Dery of Tamale, Ghana;
Father Albert Vanhoye, S.J., former secretary of the Pontifical Biblical Commission.