"Sound-bite," New Cardinals and Global Church

The College of Cardinals represent the pope as his cabinet, so to say. Yesterday, John L. Allen observed that

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. ...

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.

Read Mr. Allen's entire post to learn his reasons and gain a clearer understanding of the makeup of the Catholic Church today.
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