Ordinary and extraordinary consistories of cardinals are defined in the Code of Canon Law, which was revised in 1983.
In some situations, an extraordinary consistory is held, and all of the world’s cardinals are invited to attend.
When the pope needs the cardinals’ advice on a major (but normal) topic, or to impart solemnity to a papal decision, such as the permission of canonizations, an ordinary consistory is held.
On February 12-13, 2015, Pope Francis summoned the cardinals to an extraordinary consistory for the first time. The pope is summoning the cardinals to Rome once more now that the new Vatican constitution has been released.
The changing face of the College of Cardinals
It’s the process of completing a circle. Prior to the consistory for the election of new cardinals in 2015, a meeting was organized. After a consistory for the appointment of new cardinals on Aug. 29-30, a special consistory dedicated to consideration of the constitution Praedicate evangelium will take place.
Since his election in 2013, Pope Francis has only summoned one additional extraordinary consistory. On February 22, 2014, the focus of the meeting was on the family. It all started with a speech by Cardinal Walter Kasper, a German theologian who set the tone for the 2014-2015 Synods of Bishops on the Family.
Many things changed between 2015 and 2022. First and foremost, there is the College of Cardinals. By 2015, Pope Francis had appointed 15 cardinal electors and five non-electors to the College of Cardinals. He went on to create 73 more cardinals, including 48 electors, in following consistories. In recent years, the College of Cardinals has taken on a new look.
There will be 132 cardinal electors after the August consistory, with 62 percent of them being cardinals appointed by Pope Francis. Many of them have never had the chance to speak with one another. “I wouldn’t know who sits next to me in a conclave,” a cardinal created under a previous pontificate protested.
Meanwhile, Pope Francis has pushed forward with a Curia reform that has evolved significantly over time. To grasp the changes, we must return to the extraordinary consistory of 2015, which drew 164 cardinals from throughout the world.
The 2015 extraordinary consistory
The 2015 extraordinary consistory began with a “very comprehensive multi-voiced report” on economic difficulties, according to Father Federico Lombardi, then director of the Holy See press office. Cardinal George Pell, then-prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, as well as Cardinal Reinhard Marx, head of the Council for the Economy, and other officials involved in Vatican financial reform, addressed.
The Council of Cardinals (then known as the C9) issued a report on curial reform the next day, as well as an address on the Curia’s internal coordination. Cardinal Seán O’Malley then spoke about the newly established Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
In the years afterwards, Vatican financial reform has taken both forward and backward steps, mirroring the debate during the 2015 consistory. In fact, the financial autonomy of Vatican departments was examined at the time, as well as which departments, such as the Secretariat of State and the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, maintained a degree of independence due to their unique nature.
But, in the end, after much trial and error, Pope Francis pressed on with the reforms he envisioned. And it’s possible that it was those debates, which some dubbed “resistance,” that convinced him of the need to undertake reform without engaging the entire College of Cardinals.
Father Lombardi said that there had been “a certain consensus” on the possibility of a partial implementation of some specific aspects of the reform, “without waiting for the completion of the whole work.”
That’s exactly what happened. But the use of the consistory as a sort of “papal advisory board,” as the pope had sought to do at the start of his pontificate, was suspended.