Consistory of Cardinals Update 1

All eyes are turning to Rome...

Rocco Palmo will surely have a steady stream of coverage.

Michael Paulson of the Boston Globe is live-blogging from Rome.

And yours truly will be doing his best to keep track of whatever else falls between the cracks...

Cardinals-designate are allowed to attend the pre-consistory meeting:

No set agenda for pre-consistory meeting, cardinal-elect says

Rome, Mar. 22 (CWNews.com) - No agenda has been set for a meeting of the College of Cardinals on March 23, according to one of the invited participants. The meeting comes on the eve of a consistory at which Pope Benedict XVI will elevate 15 new members of the College of Cardinals.

Father Albert Vanhoye, a French Jesuit who will receive his red hat on March 24, told the Roman news agency I Media that he received an invitation to the meeting before the consistory. "So I will go," said the Scripture scholar, "even without yet being a cardinal."

Cardinal-designate O'Malley yucks it up:

"Trying on a cassock, O'Malley said he felt, well, rather conspicuous.

''I said that I could always wear it if I was called to be on a hunting expedition with the vice president," he joked to two dozen Boston-based reporters in Rome yesterday. ''It is very red.""

...

"With the informal nature of Archbishop O’Malley, who prefers to be called “Archbishop Sean,” it is unclear what he will actually want to be called [instead of Archbishop Sean Patrick Cardinal O'Malley, that is]." [source]

Oh well, this is what you get for electing monks into Cardinals...