{"id":1886,"date":"2007-04-29T00:34:27","date_gmt":"2007-04-29T00:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/04\/cover-pope.html"},"modified":"2007-04-29T00:34:27","modified_gmt":"2007-04-29T00:34:27","slug":"cover-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/04\/cover-pope.html","title":{"rendered":"Cover Pope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, many of you have seen the cover, but here’s Teresa Benedetto’s translation of the article about the Pope in this month’s German edition of Vanity Fair written by Peter Seewald.<\/a> (Oh..one more<\/em> prepositional phrase in that sentence! Come on!)<\/p>\n

(Seewald is the journalist who interviewed then-Cardinal Ratzinger for two books, Salt of the Earth<\/em> and God and The World.)<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Meanwhile, the new style of this Papacy is quite clear. First he discarded the obligatory hand-kissing that was a carryover of courtly practice, although people may and do kiss the Papal ring. He replaced the papal tiara on the Papal coat of arms with the bishop\u2019s miter. <\/p>\n

\"Vanity\"<\/a> Wojtyla usually used the first-pronoun ‘I\u2019 when speaking, but Ratzinger has chosen to use the papal \u201awe\u2019 in order to project not himself but the office and all the bishops supporting the office. <\/p>\n

Vatican personnel note that things are more disciplined, efficient and transparent. Benedict shortened the first Bishops Synod under him from 4 weeks to 3, and made it more collegial, also introducing a daily hour of free discussion. <\/p>\n

\u201eHis strength is amazing,\u201c says someone who works with him. \u201eHe does nto seem to feel the burden of the office.\u201c They find it puzzling how he can manage, despite all the work required even just by daily routine how he can still manage to write. <\/p>\n

At the start, what helped Benedict to deal with his predecessor\u2019s legacy was a more effective use of time and the customary hard work in which he had trained himself since youth. But he has also reduced the number of audiences and public events by about 50 percent. <\/p>\n

The Vatican apparatus, which is well able to prevent the Pope from leading the Church effectivly by filling up his calendar with eventes they recommend, had to yield to Benedict. He has chosen to intensify his meetings with bishops and priests in order to be better acquainted with the problems of the Church. Ratzinger studies previously available reports intensively before each of these meetings <\/p>\n

Benedict generally works fast, but he allows matters which need clarification to reach an appropriate maturation before making a decision. <\/p>\n

Critics point out that Ratzinger has been too slow in filling up important positions as they become free. But personnel matters are not his strong suit. Even in his immediate environment, he is more likely to let unresolved personnel problems drag on or ignores them completely. <\/p>\n

That he can\u2019t be brilliant in all things is also evident in his TV interviews so far. His answers are often involved and hardly original, too standard. <\/p>\n

"Thank God that is over,\u201c he was heard to say in relief right after finishing the TV itnerview for German networks before his visit to Bavaria<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, many of you have seen the cover, but here’s Teresa Benedetto’s translation of the article about the Pope in this month’s German edition of Vanity Fair written by Peter Seewald. (Oh..one more prepositional phrase in that sentence! Come on!) (Seewald is the journalist who interviewed then-Cardinal Ratzinger for two books, Salt of the Earth…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nCover Pope - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/04\/cover-pope.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cover Pope - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Well, many of you have seen the cover, but here’s Teresa Benedetto’s translation of the article about the Pope in this month’s German edition of Vanity Fair written by Peter Seewald. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}