Here Come the First 100 Days

Magister breaks out of the box early on what will be a flood of "100 Days of B16" stories... and, per usual, he hits everything.

Lucious nuggets for the snowflakes:

• "Archbishop Piero Marini... is waiting to be assigned other duties." (Other duties which are currently being squabbled over. Not Teheran.)
• For the Georg lovers: "There is a significant difference between [Ganswein] and John Paul II's famous right-hand man, Stanislaw Dziwisz, now archbishop of Krakow. Dziwisz exercised an important influence over the thousand decisions of ordinary Church governance that pope Karol Wojtyla overlooked. And the looming presence of his secretary was never lacking from any of the pope's working lunches or dinners.... Gaenswein appears less frequently and exercises less influence. The new pope doesn't invite anyone to lunch or dinner, just as in the past he was not accustomed to so doing. He speaks informally with his guests and forms his decisions personally." (But Bertone was invited to dine at Les Combes the other day. Topic? Harry Potter, of course.)
  
• Ingrid and Birgit, twin powers: "Benedict XVI loves to write by hand, in German, in a miniscule script that is perfectly legible to his trusted secretaries, Ingrid Stampa and Birgit Wansing.... Stampa, for her part, has been integrated into the German section of the secretariat of state." (And SegStat, as everyone knows, is where the private secretary to the pope is accredited. Ergo, it's official -- she has an office!)
• And keeping house: "Benedict XVI has brought with him, to his residence at the Apostolic Palace, Carmela and Loredana, members of Memores Domini, the branch of religious women of the group Communion and Liberation. They have taken religious vows, but do not wear a religious habit. They take care of the kitchen, the cleaning, the wardrobe. The latter of the two has worked in the past with Cardinal Angelo Scola, when he was rector of the Pontifical Lateran University. Another two sisters of the same order, Emanuela and Cristina, will soon complete the team."

Fascinating, all of it. And heavy Navarro-Valls sourcing on the press operation, it seems....

Whither Famiglia Irpinia when the ground is shaking?

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