The New Cardinals-Designate

A few thoughts on the new Carndinals-Designate:

• Is anyone actually surprised that either Burke or Wuerl were named Cardinals? Both hold positions which are considered cardinalatial, and the latter's predecessor just turned 80.
• Did anyone actually think that Dolan was going to become a Cardinal this time around when there were so many appointments to lead positions in the Curia in the last couple of years? There wasn't much room to include residential archbishops, so it certainly didn't make sense that anyone would be included when his predecessor was still an elector.
• Who else was interested to see that the continent receiving the second largest contingent of electors this round was Africa (with 4, to Europe's 11). In one case, there was a nod of respect to the Coptic Catholics, honoring their Patriarch. In another case, an Archibishop Emeritus was named for some reason. Even so, I wonder if we can make something of the rapid growth of the African Church playing some part in the creation of a proportionately large number of Africans.
• Of the Europeans named, eight were from the Curia, only three from residential sees. This might be more recognition of the need to have Cardinals head most of the dicasteries of the Curia. It makes me wonder if there will be a lessening of the number of Cardinals overall from Europe in the future (though I imagine the number of Italians will remain high, if not for Curial connections, then for the need to have people in the running for the next Pope who definitely speak Italian).

These are some of my observations. What did you notice?