Currently composed of 120 cardinal electors who can elect a future pope in a conclave, the College of Cardinals will lose 10 cardinal electors due to age in 2022. As of Dec. 31, 2022, the College of Cardinals will have 110 electors and 105 non-electors, not including any deaths or the potential appointment of new cardinals by Pope Francis.
The ten cardinals who will reach the canonical age of 80 and lose their voting rights in the event of a conclave are:
- January 7: Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, archbishop emeritus of Santiago (Chile).
- April 7: Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, Archbishop of Perugia, President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (Italy).
- April 13: Cardinal Ricardo Blazquez Pérez, Archbishop of Valladolid (Spain).
- June 6: Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, Archbishop Emeritus of Mexico City (Mexico).
- 3 September: Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez, auxiliary bishop of San Salvador (El Salvador).
- 22 September: Cardinal Rubén Salazar Gomez, Archbishop Emeritus of Bogota (Colombia).
- 1 October: Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, President Emeritus of the Governorate of Vatican City (Italy).
- 18 October: Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture (Italy).
- November 7: Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, Archbishop Emeritus of Paris (France).
- December 29: Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, Archbishop of Tegucigalpa (Honduras).
Worth noting is that this list includes two cardinals who are members of the Council of Cardinals (or C7), the body in charge of accompanying Pope Francis in his reform of the Curia. They are Cardinals Bertello and Maradiaga.
With the College of Cardinals about to fall below 120 electors – the maximum number in theory but the minimum in practice for the past 20 years – Pope Francis can be expected to create new cardinals in a consistory early next year.