Word: benedicts
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...Behind Benedict's Vatican Overhaul Though eyes are on his trip home, the Pope is (gradually) launching big changes back in the Roman Curia
...Pope Benedict XVI spoke with reporters on his Alitalia jet just before take-off for his current trip to Germany, an imposing - and familiar - figure in black and red appeared just over the smaller shoulders of the German pontiff. He is Cardinal Angelo Sodano, and for the past 15 years, the husky Italian has served as Secretary of State, effectively the No. 2 post in the Vatican hierarchy. But for the 78-year-old prelate, who'd accompanied John Paul abroad dozens of times, this week's trip with Benedict to Bavaria will be his final assignment in the powerful...
...while the Pope enjoys his homecoming this week (Monday he traveled to the small Bavarian town of Marktl am Inn where he was born), Vatican insiders say the beginning of the Benedict era back at the Roman Curia begins in earnest this fall. Some, in fact, predict that Bertone - a longtime trusted confidante of the former Cardinal Ratzinger - was handpicked to be Secretary of State in order to usher in a virtual revolution in the way Catholic Church headquarters operates. Through an effort that will be part downsizing, part priority overhaul, the theologian pontiff is said to want Church headquarters...
...than some had wanted - especially those critical of the power that Sodano had amassed in the last years of John Paul's papacy - the new Pope has nonetheless already made some notable personnel moves, with others sure to come. Here are five key changes that have taken place since Benedict took over in April 2005, and five more shifts that may be on the horizon...
...first post the Pope had to fill was his own old job, to head of the Vatican office that oversees doctrinal orthodoxy. His choice of the then Archbishop of San Francisco, William J. Levada, was the first sign that Benedict would take his own counsel on key personnel changes. Defying conventional wisdom that the doctrinal capo had to be a European intellectual heavy hitter, the Pope chose the shy California native whom he'd known well when they worked together in Rome in the early 1980s. By choosing Levada it was also evident that the Vatican's theologian-in-chief...