Cardinal Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo wants more time.
The leader of the Catholic Church in Japan’s capital archdiocese was in Rome for an extraordinary gathering of 178 cardinals – a consistory – the second such meeting Pope Leo XIV has called during his not-quite-fourteen-months in office.
The cardinals met over two days last weekend to discuss a range of issues, but mostly – Kikuchi told Crux Now – they shared stories of life on the ground in their home countries and the challenges facing their Churches and their faithful.
“It was a really rich moment we spent together,” Kikuchi said, “but it was only for two days.”
“I’d say most of us – especially those who participated in 23/24 synod assemblies – were happy with the method,” he said. “The time allocated for the group work, however, was too short,” he also said.
Kikuchi also told Crux Now the cardinals are still getting to know one another.
The cardinals, who are the “clergy of Rome” and have the primary duty of electing Rome’s bishop (when the time comes), are also supposed to be the pope’s closest collaborators and advisors.
Pope Francis expanded the number of voting cardinals and called men to the office from every corner of the globe, often bypassing traditionally “cardinalatial” archdioceses in favor of men – and Churches – from what he called “the peripheries.”
In a wide-ranging exclusive exchange with Crux Now, Kikuchi said the development has changed the college of cardinals for the better – Kikuchi himself received the red hat from Pope Francis in 2024 – but the changes to the makeup of the college have also brought challenges, including the cardinals’ relative unfamiliarity with one another.
Francis did not bring the cardinals together to talk business very often, a fact about which the cardinals privately complained.
Leo has been sensitive to the complaint, and has been trying to create time and space for the cardinals to get to know one another and discuss affairs.
“I still don’t know many of the cardinals personally,” Kikuchi said, “and I am sure many of them don’t know who I am.”
Below, please find the full transcript of Crux Now’s conversation with Cardinal Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo…
Crux Now: What was different about this second “business” consistory of Leo’s pontificate, with respect to the first one earlier this year?
Card Isao Kikuchi: The first one was a kind of trial run for Pope Leo, I think, to see the reaction of the cardinals to the “synodal” way of sharing in groups.
That first time, the pope proposed four topics and we choose two.
The response from the majority of cardinals was positive, so I think the pope took a kind of assurance from that, to pursue the “synodal” style of consultation.
So, I could say Pope Leo really started to try to listen to cardinals to discern the correct direction for the Church’s mission.
There has been some talk in the chattering classes, about the “methodology” of group work, especially the summary reports of the groups. Are cardinals pleased with the procedure(s)? Are you pleased with the procedure(s)?
I’d say most of us – especially those who participated in 23/24 synod assemblies – were happy with the method.
The time allocated for the group work, however, was too short.
For instance, I was a moderator of an English-speaking group of cardinals, all of us in the group diocesan bishops. We were supposed to follow three cycles of “conversation in the spirit,” and we had an hour and a half.
There were eleven of us in the group.
Pope Leo wanted us to share our local realities with each other, to talk especially about the challenges we face, but each cardinal had a very great deal to share – all of it very powerful – but 90 minutes for eleven cardinals to get through three rounds of that just isn’t sufficient.
Many expressed that for the next consistory, more days should be allocated.
Are the meetings helping the cardinals develop working relationships?
I am not so sure.
It was a really rich moment we spent together, but it was only for two days.
I still don’t know many of the cardinals personally, and I am sure many of them don’t know who I am.
Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, the papacy has gone from a local office with universal jurisdiction, to a global office headquartered in Rome: How has this change affected the College of Cardinals?
I think in the past, cardinals were local advisers to the pope, a circle based on the local reality of the Roman and Western Church.
Today, thanks largely to Pope Francis, there is a great deal more diversity in the college. We are a diverse bunch linguistically and culturally.
Not only.
we come from diverse countries, from all over the world. This diversity brings the reality of the local Churches to Rome.
It is not the pope commanding from Rome.
It is the pope willing to know – in detail – the lived reality of the Church everywhere on the globe, and to let that reality inform his understanding.
We are still to be advisors for the pope, so we are taught, but so many of us live far away from Rome and rarely meet and talk with the Holy Father.
In reality, then, the consistory – as Leo appears to understand it and to use it – creates a privileged opportunity for us to bring local reality to the pope and to make that the reality of our Church.
He hears stories from, say, a remote village in Africa, and he takes that in. We all do. Their sufferings are our sufferings, as it says in Lumen Gentium.
What are your hopes for the next meeting, whether in terms of topics to discuss or progress to be made, relationships to foster, or even outcomes you’d like to see?
It is clear as we are more than 200, it is impossible for Holy Father to meet each one of us regularly so that I really appreciate this kind of Consistory to continue. I just hope our discussion might be help of Holy Father to discern direction of the mission of the Church.
