Word: papal
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...that your magazine is "top-heavy with Catholic news" at the time of a papal choice is like complaining that it is top-heavy with political news at election time...
...plenty of opportunity to make his presence known. Vatican employees, including elevator men and gardeners, were getting over their initial shock at being greeted informally by the Holy Father (Pope Pius XII had the gardens cleared before he entered them). Everyone was growing accustomed to the surprising sound of papal laughter ("Pius XII had a very gentle sense of humor," said one of the late Pope's closest advisers. "For 20 years I never saw him laugh"). John XXIII is not averse to starting laughter at his own expense. While speaking to a delegation of some 10,000 Venetians...
...earth . . ." Newsmen soon found that the Pope's ear was surprisingly well attuned to these voices. In a precedent-breaking press conference in which he talked off-the-cuff in French, John spoke frankly of himself as "moi-méme," apologized for not using the traditional papal "we" with "I'm not used to it yet." He went on to say that in the excitement of the past week "it has been hard to get to sleep, so I've been reading the newspapers, not out of vanity but simply out of curiosity. I noted...
Accustomed to receiving full and formal texts of papal statements (which Pius XII painstakingly composed in advance), journalists had a hard time keeping up with John as he rattled on without notes, clapping his hands ebulliently to emphasize his points, almost bouncing in the commodious papal throne and glancing at the richly robed attendants of the papal antechamber to see if they laughed at his sallies. At the end of the conference, the Pope said cheerfully: "Now I'll give you a little blessing, if you want it-you may extend it to all those whom you keep...
...Pope was also energetically shouldering his way through a massive cumulus of routine and ritual-reopening the papal study, which had been sealed on Pius XII's death, selecting his living quarters (the same three sparsely furnished rooms occupied by the last three Popes), meeting the household staff, learning his way around his tiny temporal kingdom of 108.7 acres, some 1,000 inhabitants...