Dr Desmond Connell will this week become just the third Archbishop of Dublin to join the College of Cardinals. He is the first Archbishop of Dublin to do so in more than a century.
Dr Connell will be the 10th Irishman to be so honoured while serving as an Archbishop in Ireland. The late Cardinal Michael Browne, also Irish, served in Rome.
Dr Connell follows Cardinals Paul Cullen and Edward McCabe (both Dublin), Michael Logue, Patrick O'Donnell, Joseph MacRory, John D'Alton, William Conway, Tomas O Fiaich, Cahal Daly (all Armagh).
At least four among the 44 men to be elevated this week have Irish associations. The Archbishop of Westminster, Dr Cormac Murphy O'Connor, has strong Cork connections and holidays there most years. Archbishops Edward Egan of New York and Theodore McCarrick of Washington have Irish ancestry, while Archbishop Wilfred Napier of Durban studied at NUI Galway in the 1960s.
All except Archbishop Napier were among the 37 names announced by Pope John Paul on January 21st. Dr Napier was among a further seven named on January 28th.
This latter group included the theologian, Father Avery Dulles SJ, son of John Foster Dulles, US Secretary of State under President Eisenhower. Mr Dulles snr was a Presbyterian.
Among other surprise names on January 28th was Bishop Karl Lehmann of Mainz, chairman of the German Bishop's Conference. Until recently he was in dispute with the Vatican over Catholic counselling centres in Germany.
Less of a surprise was the appointment the same day of another German, Archbishop Walter Kasper, currently secretary at the Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
Two of those named on January 28th - Archbishop Marian Jaworski of the "Roman" or "Latin" Catholics in Lviv, Ukraine, and Archbishop Janis Pujats of Riga - were appointed in pectore in 1998. While they will receive their birettas on Wednesday, they have seniority over the other new cardinals.
When a man is named in pectore ("in the heart") his name is not made public. Often, he himself may not know. The secrecy usually has to do with the political situation where they live.
For instance, Cardinal Ignatius Gong Pinmei of Shanghai, who spent 30 years in a Chinese prison, was made a cardinal in pectore in 1979. He learned this for the first time in 1989 when he had an audience with Pope John Paul. Dr Connell will receive his zucchetto (skullcap) and biretta at a ceremony in the Vatican on Wednesday. On Thursday he will be presented with his ring at a Mass in St Peter's.
He will not be getting a red hat. The cardinal's hat (galero) is no longer given. In the past there was a tradition that when a cardinal died his hat would be hung from the ceiling of the sanctuary in his cathedral. Superstition held that he would be in purgatory until it fell. This sometimes prompted enemies to bolt such hats to the ceiling.
It is more accurate to refer to the colour of a cardinal's clothes as scarlet. The colour symbolises his willingness to shed blood for the church.
