In a surprise move, Pope Francis has appointed a Canadian Jesuit priest, Father Michael Czerny, as one of the newest members of the august body of Cardinals in the Church. There have been ‘cardinals’ – literally, those men upon whom the Church ‘hinged’ – since the seventh century or so, but it was in 1059 that they were formalized by Pope Nicholas II, being granted the right of electing the man who would be the Vicar of Christ, and of helping him govern the universal Church through the Curia.
I know nothing of Father Czerny, except what I have read in
