Word: monsignor
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...Catholicism's point man on this shifting terrain is Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi, 65, an erudite and affable Milanese bible scholar, whom Benedict plucked last year to head the Pontifical Council for Culture. Ravasi says the godless ideologies of the past century, for all their faults, at least forced man to confront hard choices about the destiny of humanity. Today's atheism, in contrast, is "weak and sick ... just as, in some ways, there is [also] a weak faith," Ravasi told TIME. "God isn't a relevant problem. The battle against religion isn't even necessary. In this way, there...
...addressed the Englaro case specifically. But his lieutenants were quick to respond after the Milan appeals court ruled last week that, in the absence of a living will, Englaro's "presumed desire" to not continue living by artificial means can be deduced from hearing from her loved ones. Monsignor Rino Fisichella, the influential president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, called the decision "de facto euthanasia." Another top Vatican bioethicist, Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, who'd spoken out in the Schiavo case, accused the Milan court of "interrupting a life, [which] is never within man's authority...
...visit in the United States next week, you may notice that he doesn't have the same onstage flair as his predecessor, John Paul II. But you may also begin to notice a very handsome man of the cloth never far from the pontiff's side. That would be Monsignor Georg Gänswein, the Pope's personal secretary, responsible for everything from deciding who gets to see Benedict, to keeping His Holiness on schedule, to discreetly handing him his papal reading glasses just before a homily or other public discourse. While he is the paradigm of discretion, others have taken...
...Paparazzi have snapped photos of him playing tennis in his tennis whites, while the Roman and Bavarian press eagerly report his bravura on the ski slopes and appearances at evening Church functions. Nevertheless, despite the glamour imposed on him by the celebrity press, the tall, athletic and dirty-blond Monsignor in his clerical black, concentrates on his pivotal but quiet job choreographing papal appearances. And that is how Americans will see him, in a supporting role buoyed by his scene-stealing good looks...
...when Ratzinger's longtime personal secretary, Monsignor Josef Clemens, was appointed to a top position in another Vatican office, Gänswein stepped into the role of Ratzinger's right-hand man. It was not expected to be a particularly long assignment, as the Cardinal planned to return to his private studies in Germany after the conclusion of the papacy of the ailing John Paul II. Of course, fate had other plans, and when Ratzinger became Benedict XVI, Gänswein moved with him across St. Peter's Square to the office next to the new pontiff in the Apostolic Palace...