Word: vaticans
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...doubt Benedict is playing to his strengths. And he may still be trying to regain his footing after his most ambitious attempt at jumping into the global debate ? his speech in Regensberg, Germany, last year about faith, reason and violence in contemporary Islam - largely backfired. Indeed, many in the Vatican were pleased that this trip to Austria came off with little controversy...
...broad vision of world affairs, but he chose not to take it. With key figures at the International Atomic Energy Agency present, for example, he made no mention of growing tensions between the West and Iran. Still, Benedict may soon get another, even bigger political opportunity: Vatican insiders say that the Pope could speak at the United Nations in New York City next spring. That would be a pilgrimage of an entirely different order of magnitude...
Exactly one year ago, the Vatican press corps set out from Rome on a papal trip that wasn't expected to produce major headlines. Yes, Pope Benedict XVI was visiting his native Bavaria on the Sept. 9-14 voyage, and there would be photo opportunities from his small riverside hometown and the university where he'd once taught theology. We now know, of course, that his Sept. 12, 2006, visit to his old teaching haunt, the University of Regensberg, would become the stage for the most significant moment of Benedict's papacy thus far. The provocative lecture about faith...
...spirit ... [and] will grow more sure of itself if it accepts a responsibility in the world corresponding to its singular intellectual tradition, its extraordinary resources and its great economic power." Still, while forcefully argued, these were not the kind of electrifying words he delivered last year in Regensberg, and Vatican officials privately say they'd prefer a voyage that didn't necessarily produce so many headlines...
...editors, many of whom had come from more respectable venues, like The New York Times and the Philadelphia (not the National) Inquirer, were past masters at the fine craft of attention-grabbing. A headline like "Bloody Statue of Mother Teresa Has PMS!" would be topped by the deck "Vatican Experts Confirm:" and explained by the pull quote "After the blood stops, she gets grumpy." Those are teasers that should be taught in J school...