Two Cardinals to Wear Simple White Instead of Red

by CNS · December 7, 2024

Cardinal-designate Timothy Radcliffe, theologian and former master of the Dominican Order, speaks with senior CNS correspondent Carol Glatz, during a news conference at the Vatican Dec. 6, 2024. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

By Carol Glatz, CNS – Two cardinals-to-be will stand out in a sea of red during a solemn consistory in St Peter’s Basilica when Pope Francis creates 21 new cardinals on Dec. 7.

Cardinals-designate Timothy Radcliffe, a British Dominican theologian, and his confrere, French Archbishop Jean-Paul Vesco of Algiers, Algeria, will be wearing the simple white robes of their order and not the formal red dress of a cardinal of the Catholic Church.

“People think I’m being revolutionary, actually I’m just being traditionalist,” Cardinal-designate Radcliffe told reporters on Dec. 6, the eve of his induction into the College of Cardinals.

“It’s a very new idea that when you become a cardinal, a religious stops wearing his habit,” he said. The preacher will also not be ordained a bishop, again, according to an older tradition.

“It is normal for religious not to be ordained bishops. In the 19th century, they never were. It’s a very modern idea that when people who are priests become cardinals, they should be ordained bishops,” he said.

It is also “in fidelity to my religious vocation,” he said. “In the depth of my being, I am a brother … and I wish to remain a brother” and to be “at the service of my brothers and sisters in the church.”