And Now, The Cleanup

With the consistory behind, the Pope received the new cardinals and their guests for an audience this morning in the Nervi. He's shown here embracing the always-smiling Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong.

Benedict XVI greeted the delegations in Italian, English, French, Spanish, Polish and Slovenian. He made special note of the elderly mother of the Venezuelan Neo-Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino and thanked Stanislaw Dziwisz for "all [his] years past at the side of John Paul II and for all which that service made possible for the universal Church," praying that the Krakow cardinal's "future ministry may be equally fruitful."

The Pope also hinted that meetings of the "entire" College of Cardinals will become more routine and hold a "privileged" place in his mind and the vision of his pontificate.

So with it all over, I'll be spending the next few days taking care of everything I didn't get to last week. We're six days from the first anniversary of l'amato Papa Giovanni Paolo's journey to the Father's house, so the end of the week and weekend will be taken up with that.

But, in the meantime, I just need to clean my bedroom and office which, despite being 4,000 miles away from the action, look like they've been stampeded through by consistory pilgrims. One project I'm eager to get to is piecing apart my library, most of which I don't need anymore and will probably end up divesting in one form or another. I don't have Papa Ratzi's 20,000 books (arranged meticulously) but I've still got enough that my nightstand acts as a tertiary bookshelf. It's such a mess and it needs to get taken care of.

I'll still be here, but just posting the "need-to-post" things. As for everything else, well, it's Lent and I need to refocus on that.... News may come and go, but Easter remains ahead, and I'm nowhere near prepared.

And now, off to my penitential cleaning. Happy Monday.


PHOTO: AP/Plinio Lepri

-30-