page_title: Cardinals created by Paul VI
section_title: 27 June 1977
hierarchical_section_title: Cardinals created by Paul VI / 27 June 1977
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Kardinal Bernadin Gantin
context_page_description: Pope Paul VI created 143 cardinals in six consistories. His predecessor Pope John XXIII had disregarded the centuries-long tradition that limited the College of Cardinals to seventy members, increasing its size to as high as 88 in 1961. Paul continued this practice, and with his appointments the College grew to 103 in 1965, 118 in 1967, 134 in 1969. He then instituted a new rule that diminished the significance of the size of the College. In November 1970 he announced that as of 1 January 1971 only a cardinal who had not yet reached his 80th birthday would be allowed to enter a conclave. When the 1973 consistory increased the size of the College to 145, the number of those under 80 who constituted the cardinal electors was 117. In 1975, he set the maximum number of cardinal electors at 120. Each of his later consistories in 1976 and 1977 brought the number of electors to the full complement of 120.
  Three of those Paul named a cardinal became pope, Pope John Paul I, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI, who is the last survivor of the cardinals whom Paul named.
context_section_description: On 2 June 1977, Pope Paul announced that he would create four new cardinals on 27 June and made public the name of cardinal he had created in pectore a year earlier, Tomasek of Czechoslovakia. All were young enough to serve as papal electors. This brought the membership of the College of Cardinals to 137 and the number of cardinal electors up to the limit of 120. By one account, this "mini-consistory" was held principally for Benelli, who was being made Archbishop of Florence after ten years as Substitute at the Secretariat of State. Paul himself, at a similar stage of a similar career, had been appointed Archbishop of Milan in 1954 but not made a cardinal by Pius XII. This treatment of Benelli prompted speculation that Paul was designating him his successor or preparing to retire when he reached 80 later in the year.
  Giovanni Benelli (1921–1982)
  Bernardin Gantin (1922–2008)
  Joseph Ratzinger (b. 1927) (Pope Benedict XVI; r. 2005–2013)
  Mario Luigi Ciappi (1909–1996)
caption: Bernardin Gantin (1922-2008), made a cardinal in 27 June 1977.
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