Cardinals created by Pius XII
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Pope Pius XII (r. 1939–1958) created 56 cardinals in two consistories. On both occasions Pius tried to bring the membership of the College of Cardinals to 70, the maximum established by Pope Sixtus V in 1586.[1] The death of one cardinal meant his first consistory brought the College to 69 members, but his second consistory, through the prompt addition of another name after a cardinal-designate died, brought the number of cardinals to 70.
Pius was elected in 1939 by a papal conclave in which 62 cardinals participated. The Second World War forced him to wait until 1946 to hold a consistory to create cardinals. He then waited seven years as the membership of the College fell to 46 before holding another consistory in 1953, and it had fallen to 53 when he died five and a half years later without holding another consistory.
Pius' cardinals included Angelo Roncalli, who succeeded him as Pope John XXIII. He created the first native-born Australian cardinal, and the first cardinals from Chile, China, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, and India; Teodósio de Gouveia was the first from Mozambique and the first cardinal to reside in Africa in the modern era. Those Pius named from Poland and Yugoslavia did not attend the consistory out of fear their governments would not allow them to return home.
By creating just four Italians out of 32 cardinals in 1946 and 10 of 24 in 1953, Pius transformed the geographic composition of the College of Cardinals. At the time of the conclave that elected him in 1939, 35 of the 62 cardinals were Italian. At his death in 1958, the Italians were 17 of 53. Over the same timespan, the number of non-Europeans grew from seven to 18.[lower-alpha 1]