Examples
Ferdinando I de' Medici was a lay cardinal for twenty-six years. Even after he succeeded his brother Francesco I de' Medici as Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1587, he nevertheless remained a cardinal until he married Christina of Lorraine two years later.
Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria was a lay cardinal for about 20 years from 1620 (about age 10) to his death in 1641.
Teodolfo Mertel, a lawyer and layman, was named cardinal by Pope Pius IX in 1858. He was not a lay cardinal for long, as he received ordination to the diaconate the same year. When he died in 1899 he was the last non-priest cardinal. (Giacomo Antonelli, who died in 1876 as Pius IX's Cardinal Secretary of State, remained a deacon when named cardinal in 1847.)
In 1968 Pope Paul VI seriously considered appointing the French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain a lay cardinal.
Read more about this topic: Lay Cardinal
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