Cardinals created by Pius XII

Those Pius named from Poland and Yugoslavia did not attend the consistory out of fear their governments would not allow them to return home.

[c] He said: "we have been anxious that the greatest number of races and peoples should be represented, so that this creation may portray in a living manner the universality of the church.

As a symbolic recognition of the end of World War II, two of the new cardinals, Bernard Griffin from Great Britain and Konrad von Preysing of Germany embraced when they met on 12 February in the Vatican.

[7] Agagianian, just 50, became the youngest member of the College, though his patriarch's title gave him precedence ahead of other cardinals created at this consistory.

[9] The large number of new cardinals required moving the ceremony where the pope meets with the new cardinals from the papal apartments to the Hall of Benedictions, and for the public ceremony the papal throne was repositioned from the apse of St. Peter's Basilica to the steps of the Altar of Confession to allow for a larger crowd of spectators.

[11] Mindszenty arrived for the public ceremony on 21 February, but José María Caro and Manuel Arteaga y Betancourt were suffering from influenza.

[20] The next day, the Vatican announced Valerian Gracias would be made a cardinal, the first from India, allowing the College to reach its maximum membership of 70, with 26 of them Italian.

[21] Reviving a custom that had been interrupted, Pius announced that he was granting the request of Catholic heads of state in four countries to serve as his legate in delivering the cardinal's biretta to six of them, either residential bishops in or papal nuncios to their country: Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain for Gaetano Cicognani, Benjamín de Arriba y Castro, and Fernando Quiroga y Palacios; the socialist President of France Vincent Auriol for Angelo Roncalli;[22] the President of Portugal for Pietro Ciriaci; and President Luigi Einaudi of Italy for Francesco Borgongini Duca.

[27][e] When Pius died five years later, his failure to make Giovanni Battista Montini a cardinal at this conclave was much discussed.

Pius appointed him Archbishop of Milan in 1954, and Montini even received some votes at the 1958 conclave, where his prospects would have been very good had he been a cardinal.