In the earliest years, the Bishop of Rome was elected by the parish priests of the city of Rome, but he also had to be accepted by the people generally (at one time some bishops were elected, not appointed). In 1059, Pope Nicholas II made a major change by restricting the vote to just the cardinals — a group which had been created only recently.
In order to preserve a link with tradition, however, each cardinal (no matter where he comes from) is made a nominal pastor of some church within the city of Rome — only after “taking possession” of such a church is someone officially regarded as a cardinal. Whenever visiting Rome, they are expected to take the time to minister to “their” congregation there. Some cardinals are also made bishops (but in name only) of suburbicarian sees surrounding Rome.
For a long time the “college of cardinals” was a comprised almost entirely of Italian clergymen who knew each other well and who wanted to keep their numbers small in order not to dilute any of their considerable power. In 1586 Pope Sixtus V officially restricted the number of cardinals at seventy, a limit not exceeded until Pope John XXIII in 1958.
Other important changes were made by Pope Paul VI. In his Apostolic Constitution “Romano Pontifici Eligendo,” promulgated on October 1, 1975, he excluded from voting all cardinals who were over 80 years old. Because many cardinals were indeed quite old, this was a controversial step, but it has since been accepted.
What is important about this change was not so much the specific age chosen, but rather the fact that it introduced the idea that the office of cardinal did not give one the automatic right to participate in the election of a new pope. This is perhaps what outraged many cardinals at the time; at some point in the future, this principle could be used as the basis for further changes by once again allowing non-cardinals to vote for pope.
One question raised by this decision was whether a pope who reached the age of eighty needed to step down — after all, if over-eighties could not be entrusted with the power to elect a pope, how could they be entrusted with the power of a pope? This is a legitimate question which has not been entirely answered, except perhaps to say that limiting the power of the cardinals was pragmatic, political move which need not be made when it comes to the papacy. This is a legitimate argument, but it underscores the fact that the choice of pope is as much political as it is religious, something which defenders of orthodoxy don’t always want to acknowledge too publicly.
Pope Paul VI also limited the number of voting cardinals to 120, a limit adhered to by Pope John Paul II until 2001, even though he revoked “Romano Pontifici Eligendo” and introduced a new set of rules for papal elections in “Universi Dominici Gregis” in 1996. In 2001 he appointed a large number of cardinals and brought the total eligible to vote to 137. John Paul II has, in fact, appointed a tremendous number of bishops, archbishops, and cardinals, thus helping to ensure that those responsible for the election of his successor will generally be very close to him when it comes to theological matters.
The total number of cardinals changes as people die or retire, but in late 2003 the number of cardinals was over 160 while the number of cardinal electors was just over 100. Today many people question this central role of cardinals because, to be quite honest, there is no scriptural foundation for their existence. They are a medieval creation entrusted with the election of the head of the Catholic Church; for many, this is an unacceptable anomaly.
They argue that the election of the pope should rightly fall to the bishops or to whomever the bishops choose as their representatives (for example, the presidents of episocopal conferences). The reforms made by Pope Paul VI were, perhaps, a first step towards reforming the election of popes; eventually, their role may be diluted if not eliminated. Currently, however, it is a tradition of a thousand years that won’t be set aside lightly.
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