Word: xvi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Pope Benedict XVI's trip this week to the United States will include high-profile visits to the White House, United Nations and Ground Zero. But no matter what political issues or media angles may be buzzing before take-off, the Vatican tends to stress the pastoral aspect of any papal journey. The six-day itinerary is above all stacked with church services, baseball stadium masses and Catholic institutional encounters to allow the pontiff to tend to his flock, and to the priests and bishops who do the ministering when he's back in Rome...
When Pope Benedict XVI touches down for his first papal 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...
...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...
That observation captures an often ignored side of the German-born Pope Benedict XVI, 80, on the eve of his first pontifical visit to the U.S. The trip, which begins in Washington on April 15 and ends in New York City on April 20, will present most Americans with their first opportunity to take the "new" Pope's measure. Some American Catholics already feel they are familiar with Benedict and his values and coexistence is not an association that immediately crops up. Benedict clearly lacks his predecessor's charismatic affability and sense of the dramatic gesture. His conservative writings suggest...
...some kind of idealized version of it--a civic model and even an inspiration to his native Europe, whose Muslim immigrants raise the question of religious and political coexistence in the starkest terms. Says David Gibson, author of The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World: "As he tours the U.S., it's important to underscore that his philosophy has more consonances with our culture than meet the eye--some very profound...