{"id":6954,"date":"2006-06-23T11:45:25","date_gmt":"2006-06-23T11:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/on-bertone.html"},"modified":"2006-06-23T11:45:25","modified_gmt":"2006-06-23T11:45:25","slug":"on-bertone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/06\/on-bertone.html","title":{"rendered":"On Bertone"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of articles from the Italian press, courtesy of our wonderful, helpful and enthusiastic friends at the Papa Ratzinger Forum<\/a>:<\/p>\n

First, on his leavetaking from Genoa, scroll down to a couple of posts at the end of the thread – <\/a><\/p>\n

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Bertone has made himself loved and appreeciated in Genoa for his direct and friendly manner and for having introduced to the Archbishop\u2019s role a style marked by understatement and dialog. <\/p>\n

He has met with each of his priests, visiting them in their homes, travelling in his pistachio-colored and slightly battered Panda to see how they live and what they need. Among other things, this has resulted in a sort of gastronomic \u2018guide\u2019 regarding the meals for parish priests in his diocese. <\/p>\n

He has carried on a dialog with extremists, from Don Baget Bozzo, the ideologue of Forza Italia, and Don Andrea Gallo, the rebel priest of Genoa\u2019s troublesome suburbs. <\/p>\n

The city has responded to him with warm sympathy for being close to the ordinary people, for speaking as an ordinary football fan, a juvenile passion that persists today. He has made them reflect on the positions he has taken to defend the right of the Church to take part in the public debate, such as his open condemnation of euthanasia and his recent public denunciations of the Da Vinci Code<\/em>. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And this one, a little further down:<\/p>\n

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In the half hour ceremony there was only one small deviation from the simple program thad been announced, which was followed rigorously, without any declarations outside of official communications. <\/p>\n

It happened when Cardinal Bertone was halfway through his letter to his co-workers and to his Genoese flock, which he had been reading in front of countless microphones and TV cameras. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have loved this Church\u2026\u201d he began, and then he could not proceed. <\/p>\n

The Archbishop of Genoa, who had just announced that he had been called to succeed Cardinal Sodano as Secretary of State on September 15, was forced to interrupt himself to master strong emotions which suddenly choked him. <\/p>\n

But at that point, applause from his little audience helped him recover, there in the atrium of Genoa\u2019s major seminary, where not only journalists but also many priests, Curial officials and seminarians were present. They had come to the hilltop seminary for Bertone\u2019s scheduled meeting with the presbyterian council of the diocese. <\/p>\n

After he had caught his breath, the Archbishop continued, this time rather briskly, saying that he had dedicated \u201chis heart and his efforts for more than three years\u201d to the Church in Genoa, that is, from February 2003 when the ex-Secretary of the CDF and principal co-worker for eight years of the future Benedict XVI came to Genoa as Archbishop\u2026. <\/p>\n

Yesterday Rome and Genoa were united in a sentiment of mixed joy and emotion. It began as a day like any other, with the Cardinal involved in meetings with his beloved priests who were then invited to an \u2018announcement\u2019 to be made at the end of the diocesan meeting which would discuss plans and projects for the next pastoral year. <\/p>\n

It was 12:05 when Bertone made the announcement by reading the bulletin issued earlier by the Vatican Press Office. He had received an advance copy early yesterday morning\u2026 <\/p>\n

Everyone applauded and expected a comment, a witticism, but Bertone did not concede anything beyond protocol and proceeded to read first the letter of the pope to the faithful of Genoa, and then his own, remembering that on June 22, the Church honors two English saints \u2013 John Fisher and Thomas More \u2013 who were faithful to the Church at the price of their life. <\/p>\n

It was a message as clear as when he explained that for him, the nomination represented ‘a Copernican revolution’, but that he asks the Lord \u201cto be able to accompany the Pope in this promising season of a new evangelization.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cNow is not the time to draw up an account of my episcopal service in Genoa, he said, \u201cnor is it the time for greetings. I entrust my fuiture ministry to the Madonna of Protection who will watch over me even from her shrine in the Vatican Gardens.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of articles from the Italian press, courtesy of our wonderful, helpful and enthusiastic friends at the Papa Ratzinger Forum: First, on his leavetaking from Genoa, scroll down to a couple of posts at the end of the thread – Bertone has made himself loved and appreeciated in Genoa for his direct and friendly…<\/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-6954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nOn Bertone - 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\/2006\/06\/on-bertone.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On Bertone - 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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\/6954","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=6954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}