Word: charisma
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...intangible but hardly unimportant source of Brennan's power is his personal charisma. "He is universally respected, loved is not too strong a word," says a former clerk. Brennan is revered in part because of his reverence for the institution he serves. Columbia Law School Professor Gerard Lynch, a former Brennan clerk, says that he remains as delighted as ever by the fact that "ordinary people consider the Supreme Court the last bastion of justice and fairness...
...notable less for its shopworn truth than for the fact that Danneels, a blunt-spoken former liturgy professor on some short lists to be the next Pope, has essentially conceded the degree to which John Paul II's personal magnetism and its electronic deployment have made photo-ready charisma a nearly essential element of the papal job description...
...John Paul was lucky because the bar was set very low," says David Gibson, author of The Coming Catholic Church. "John XXIII had charisma, but he didn't travel. Paul VI traveled, but he didn't speak other languages very well. John Paul II ran the table." To follow that act, many observers agree, his successor will need to speak several languages, have a ready smile (or at least a telegenic frown) and, as Gibson puts it, be able "to make news by virtue of who he is" as much as by what he has done...
...there are signs of what might be called a movement against the tyranny of charisma. "The people are voicing their opinion for another figure who can hold the spotlight like Karol Wojtyla," says Vittorio Messori, a church historian who helped focus that spotlight by editing the late Pontiff's best seller Crossing the Threshold of Hope. "But what the church needs now is structure, governance and patient service." That sentiment is echoed by a surprisingly wide cross section of clerics who think that the former Pope's flair for the symbolic gesture sometimes came at the expense of administrative housecleaning...
...perhaps, above all, praise is due to Brittany Bara’s Mrs. Mullin, the lovelorn and salt-of-the-earth owner of the title namesake carousel. Not only does Bara have tremendous stage presence, her emotional intensity gave her character a realism and charisma head and shoulders above everyone else?...