There are roughly four million Catholics in England. And on Sunday, the country gained its fourth cardinal.
When Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., receives the red hat from Pope Francis Dec. 8, he will join his compatriots Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Cardinal Michael Fitzgerald, and Cardinal Arthur Roche.
This is likely the first time England has had four countrymen simultaneously belonging to the College of Cardinals — a remarkable feat considering that English Catholicism was devastated by the Reformation and then denuded by secularism.
It puts England in a strange position in relation to its neighbors. Ireland, seen in living memory as one of the world’s most Catholic nations, has just one cardinal: the 85-year-old Cardinal Seán Brady. Scotland has not had a red hat since the scandal-hit Cardinal Keith O’Brien died in 2018.
From a worldwide perspective, England will have as many cardinals as the entire continent of Oceania and as many as Nigeria, which has around 30 million Catholics — more than seven times as many as England.
Colombia, with a Catholic population of roughly 38 million (almost 10 times the size of England’s), has just three cardinals.
What’s the reason for England’s abundance of cardinals?
Anglophilia or something else?
Is Pope Francis a secret Anglophile? It’s worth considering.
