Ailing Pope Names New Cardinals

John Rawling on union's need to spread its wealth a little wider than the Twickenham picnic table.by's World Cup is that there will not be an upset, there will be no glorious moment when the lion's tail is tweaked by the unconsidered upstart, and most of the early matches will be played out in an atmosphere where the ho-hum factor is tangible.

England's gallant men set out on the long journey to Perth with the best wishes of the nation, and certainly with their most realistic chance of glory since the inauguration of the competition in 1987. But let's not get carried away with the hype. It's England versus New Zealand, maybe Australia, with South Africa and France as mere irritants somewhere behind. Rugby is a great game but there is a huge distance to go before it should be mentioned in the same breath as soccer or athletics, whatever the television viewing statistics might have us believe. the truth of the situation is rather more prosaic. At least in cricket Kenya had their moments in the World Cup and Bangladesh are making strides to indicate they are nearing readiness to take a place among the major Test-playing nations. Meanwhile, athletics' governing body the IAAF enjoys the affiliation of 210 member federations around the world. At the recent world championships in Paris, the best female athlete was Maria Mutola, an 800-metre runner from the disadvantaged country of Mozambique, and the winner of the blue riband event, the men's 100m, was Kim Collins, whose Caribbean country St Kitts and Nevis has a total population of only some 40,000. Athletics, it strikes me, is light years ahead of rugby when it comes to global reach.

So too football. For all the money slushing around the European club game, attracting most of the top players from South America and Africa, when it comes to the World Cup it truly is a global event with worldwide appeal.

Witness the crowds and the fervent support for South Korea and Japan, and the emergence of teams from Africa. It is part of the appeal of Fifa's jewelas named, probably in recognition of the pope's displeasure at the paedophile scandal that has rocked the priesthood in the US, which John Paul II sees as a sign of western decadence rather than as an offshoot of a worldwide recruitment and discipli nary problem. The disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston remains a cardinal and will be eligible to vote in the next papal election.

Despite his frailty, the pope has a busy month ahead. Next Saturday he is due to meet Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for the first time, and also Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the leader of the Catholic church in England and Wales. Following the anniversary of his accession on October 16, the pope is intending to beatify Mother Teresa, the first step on the way to her canonisation as a saint.

Yesterday's announcement was the ninth time the pope has named new cardinals during his reign, though the list was not as sizeable as in January 2001, when 44 were named.

He has now appointed 226 cardinals - members, it is said, of the most exclusive club in the world - many more than all his predecessors. By comparison, Paul VI, pope from 1963 to 1978, created 26.

The appointments are in the sole personal gift of the pope and until the 16th century some were not averse to appointing relatives and even children. Cardinals these days, however, must be "outstanding in doctrine, virtue, piety and prudence in practical matters".

The latest appointments will bring the number of cardinals leading the one billion-strong worldwide church to 195, of whom 135 are thought to be under the age of 80 and thus eligible to vote in the conclave which will choose the pope's successor.

After the pope dies, an event confirmed when a senior member of staff strikes him on the forehead with a silver hammer and calls his baptismal name to make sure he is not just asleep, the cardinals will gather within a fortnight in the Vatican to deliberate in great secrecy on the choice of his successor.

Vatican observers believe that John Paul II, as much as any of his predecessors, has been concerned to shape the character of the group which chooses the 265th pontiff, stretching back in a direct line to St Peter.

Conclaves, so called because cardinals are locked in, incommunicado in the Sistine Chapel, for as long as it takes them to deliberate and vote, are traditionally highly political affairs. At one time the cardinals had to sleep where they could find space but recently a hotel-like accommodation block with 130 rooms has been built in the nearby St Martha's hospice for the cardinals' use.

A two-thirds majority is required and in former times elections could take weeks - 50 days in 1830 - though they have tended to be much shorter recently, before a column of white smoke signifying an election emerged from the Vatican chimney.