Word: vatican
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...counting went on, two Cardinals who had entered the conclave as favorites listened attentively. Both are highly placed in the Vatican's powerful bureaucracy, the Curia: Sergio Pignedoli, who sat just to the right of the altar, and Sebastiano Baggio, who sat just to the left. But the name that kept resounding toward the shadowy ceiling of the chapel be longed to no seasoned veteran of the Curia. It belonged to a Cardinal who had never drafted documents from the dry heart of the Vatican at all, or served overseas in the papal diplomatic service. He had, in fact...
...from their brother Cardinals in Europe and the New World, conceded that an Italian was needed to handle the delicate role the papacy still must play in Italy's uncertain politics. Beyond that some Cardinals feared that any non-Italian might give a threatening new tilt to the Vatican...
...other pivotal personality in Luciani's camp was Giovanni Cardinal Benelli of Florence, for years Pope Paul's right-hand man as the No. 2 official in the Vatican Secretariat of State. "Benelli spoke of Luciani to many of the other Cardinals," said an Italian prelate. At 57, Benelli proved too young to become Pope. Still, he seemed to be the leading Pope-maker of the 1978 conclave, and figures to be a prime contender at the next...
Unlike his recent predecessors, the new Pontiff has never been a Vatican diplomat, has no experience in the labyrinthine ways of the Roman Curia, and has spent most of his life in the region of northeastern Italy where he was born (he never left Italy before last year, when he visited Brazil). But he is precisely what so many Cardinals said they were looking for: a pastor who shepherds his flock with concern, compassion and a profound sense of the spiritual...
...same time, he is a complex man with an inquisitive mind. John Cardinal Wright, American head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy, predicted that Pope John Paul would be "a witty Pontiff who delights in combining love of literature with love of the words of God." Luciani, said Carlo Confalonieri, the 85-year-old dean of the College of Cardinals, is "a bishop who reflects a lot, writes well and speaks well. The church has chosen well...