THIS-AND-THAT FROM THE ITALIAN PRESS
At the last audience, the Pope was given a homemade maxi-panettone (sort of raisin bread typically given at Christmastime) weighing several kilograms, by representatives of the Italian federation of breadmakers, pastamakers and affiliated workers.
He was also given a supply of “Pope’s salt” by the saltmakers of Cervia, a town in eastern Italy, south of Ravenna, on the Adriatic coast. “The Pope’s salt” is the term given to the first harvest of salt done in June – the grains are fine, the salt is lighter and milder than regular salt. For more than 4 centuries, the saltmakers of Cervia have provided this salt to the Vatican where it is used in Papal services and for baptismal rites in the city of Rome. In the past, the salt had to be carried on muleback to the Vatican.
No to a new piano
One gift the Pope has reportedly refused is a new piano offered to him by an Austrian family, who had read that his old piano needed tuning and would be difficult to retune. Vatican sources said the Pope wrote them back to thank them for their kind thought but that he preferred to keep his “old and dear piano.” [A report last September said new changes in the Papal apartments included a new piano!]
He knows them from TV
Papa Ratzinger has lived in Italy for more than 20 years, and apparently watched the nightly news on TV at dinnertime. Enough to recognize Italy’s political leaders by sight – not just the principals, but even their second and third in command.
So when Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi recently visited the Pope at the Vatican and started introducing the members of his delegation and explaining who they were, the pope remarked, “I know them all, thanks to TV.”
Later, when the members of the delegation were each given a rosary, the Prime Minister told the Pope his mother was a devotee of the Holy Rosary and requested one for her, too.
Ratzi’s habits at the CDF
He was always very punctual at work. He made the self-same walk every morning across St. Peter’s Square, past the left wing of the Bernini colonnade to the bronze gates of the Palazzo Sant’Uffizio, headquarters of the CDF.
He shared his office with his private secretary- first Mons. Joseph Clemens until he became an Archbishop, and then with Mons. Georg Gaenswein.
And, he always wore a cassock to work.
The aristocrats are pleased
Prince Lillio Ruspoli, a Roman nobleman, is happy that the new Pope sets the example for other priests.“It is good that he puts an end to the habit of many priests who dress as they please,” he remarked.
The Roman nobility also hopes that the Latin Mass will once again be more commonly used. One of them, who was born a prince, and who still owns an ancestral castle although somewhat crumbling, recalls that a Pallavicini (one of Rome’s noble families) once defied Pope Paul VI by inviting Bishop Lefebvre to celebrate the Latin Mass at the family chapel in 1977.
“Please don’t mention my name,” the Prince says. “Otherwise, even my fruit vendor will denounce me as a reactionary!”
And the nobles invited to that Lefebvre Mass – with names like Orsini, Odescalchi, Torlonia – are among those who now hope that Papa Ratzinger will restore a little of that antique elegance they associate nostalgically with the Latin Mass.
Always close to the German community
Despite his association with names like the Princess Borghese and the Princess Thurn und Taxis, Joseph Ratzinger’s Roman circle was not the jet set or high society.
He maintained close relations with representatives of the German community in Rome, such as the German sisters at Santa Maria dell’Anima, the priests at the Collegio Teutonico (the main seminary for training German priests in Rome) which has a building inside the Vatican next to the Sala Nervi.
Besides the weekly Mass that he used to celebrate at the chapel of the Camposanto Teutonico (the small German graveyard inside the Vatican), at which he would stay for breakfast afterwards and chat with seminarians and guests, he would often come by for a chat with the rector Father Erwin Gatz. Among the lay Germans, he socialized with Joachim Pluecher, director of the German Academy in Rome.