The College of Cardinals, more formally called the Sacred College of Cardinals, is the body of all cardinals of the Catholic Church. As of 16 January 2024, there are 239 cardinals, of whom 132 are eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope. Cardinals are appointed by the pope for life. Changes in life expectancy partly account for historical increases in the size of the college.
Franz König was an Austrian Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as archbishop of Vienna from 1956 to 1985, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1958. The last surviving cardinal elevated by Pope John XXIII, he was the second-oldest and longest-serving cardinal worldwide at the time of his death.
Angelo Raffaele Sodano, GCC was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church and, from 1991 onward, a cardinal. He was the Dean of the College of Cardinals from 2005 to 2019 and Cardinal Secretary of State from 1991 to 2006; Sodano was the first person since 1828 to serve simultaneously as Dean and Secretary of State.
Stanisław Jan Dziwisz is a Polish prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Metropolitan Archbishop of Kraków from 2005 until 2016. He was created a cardinal in 2006. He was a long-time and influential aide to Pope John Paul II, a friend of Pope Benedict XVI, and an ardent supporter of John Paul II's beatification.
Hans Hermann Wilhelm Groër OSB was an Austrian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Vienna from 1986 to 1995, and became a cardinal in 1988. Pope John Paul II replaced him as archbishop after multiple allegations of sexual abuse of children, and at John Paul's request Groër relinquished all ecclesiastical duties and privileges as an archbishop and cardinal on 14 April 1998.
Theodore Edgar McCarrick is a laicized American bishop and former cardinal of the Catholic Church. Ordained a priest in 1958, he became an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York in 1977, then became Bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey, in 1981. From 1986 to 2000, he was Archbishop of Newark. He was created a cardinal in February 2001 and served as Archbishop of Washington from 2001 to 2006. Following credible allegations of repeated sexual misconduct towards boys and seminarians, he was removed from public ministry in June 2018, became the first cardinal to resign from the College of Cardinals because of claims of sexual abuse in July 2018, and was laicized in February 2019. Several honors he had been awarded, such as honorary degrees, were rescinded.
Marc Armand Ouellet is a Canadian prelate of the Catholic Church. He was the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America from 2010 to 2023.
Keith Michael Patrick O'Brien was a senior-ranking Catholic prelate in Scotland. He was the Archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh from 1985 to 2013.
Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster was an Italian Roman Catholic prelate and professed member from the Benedictines who served as the Archbishop of Milan from 1929 until his death. He became known as Ildefonso as a Benedictine monk and served as an abbot prior to his elevation to the cardinalate.
Louis Billot was a French Jesuit priest and theologian. He became a cardinal in 1911 and resigned from that status in 1927, the only person to do so in the twentieth century. While largely unknown in the modern age, he was nonetheless considered "the most important Thomistic speculative theologian of the late nineteenth century."
The Archdiocese of Vienna is a Latin Church archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Austria. It was erected as the Diocese of Vienna on 18 January 1469 out of the Diocese of Passau, and elevated to an archdiocese on 1 June 1722. The episcopal see is situated in the cathedral of S. Stephen in Vienna.
Silvano Maria Tomasi C.S. is an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who has served as the Special Delegate to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta since 1 November 2020. He was the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva from 2003 to 2016. He previously worked in the Roman Curia, became an archbishop in 1996, and represented the Holy See as an apostolic nuncio in Africa from 1996 to 2003.
We Are Church International is an international movement founded in Rome in 1996 and registered under French law, which aims to support the renewal of the Catholic Church on the basis of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) "and the theological spirit developed from it".
The sexual abuse scandal in Austria is a major chapter in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in various Western jurisdictions.
The Austrian Bishops' Conference is the official assembly of the Roman Catholic bishops of Austria. It is the supreme authority of the Roman Catholic Church in Austria, established as a formal body under public law in 1849. Its members include the archbishops of Vienna and Salzburg, all diocesan and auxiliary bishops, as well as the abbot of immediate Wettingen-Mehrerau Abbey.
Pope Francis has created cardinals at nine consistories held at roughly annual intervals beginning in 2014, most recently on 30 September 2023. The cardinals created by Francis include 142 cardinals from 70 countries, 24 of which had never been represented in the College of Cardinals. His appointments include the first Scandinavian since the Reformation, the first from Goa since an episcopal see was established there in 1533, the first from Latin America's indigenous peoples, the first from India's Dalit class, and the first active head of a religious congregation.
The Ordinariate for Byzantine-Rite Catholics in Austria is a Catholic Ordinariate for Eastern Catholic faithful jointly for all Eastern Catholics of Byzantine Rite in the various languages of particular churches sui iuris in Austria.
Toribio Ticona Porco is a Bolivian prelate of the Catholic Church. He was Prelate of the Territorial Prelature of Corocoro from 1992 to 2012 after serving as Auxiliary Bishop of Potosí from 1986 to 1992. Pope Francis made him a cardinal on 28 June 2018.
