End of an Era

After 20 years at the helm of the influential German bishops' conference, Cardinal Karl Lehmann of Mainz is stepping down.

Lehmann, 71, said he was resigning for health reasons, according to wire reports. The cardinal was hospitalized late last year with an irregular heartbeat and said today that he would preside over the conference's spring assembly in mid-February before departing the post on the 18th. At his election to a fourth term in 2005, he announced that the six-year renewal would be his final one.

The spring assembly will elect Lehmann's successor, the conference announced.

The early departure "makes sense," Lehmann wrote in a statement, adding the latest waves of episcopal appointments in Europe's largest country made for a "necessary generational shift" of the conference's chairmanship. He also said he wanted to devote more of his energy to the 800,000-member church in Mainz, where he marks his 25th anniversary as bishop later this year.

In the name of the conference, deputy chair Bishop Heinrich Mussinghoff of Aachen, praised Lehmann for his "indefatigable" service, "theological knowledge [and] intellectual openness."

The leader of the German episcopate's liberal-progressive wing, the Mainz prelate suggested publicly in 2000 that Pope John Paul II "would have the courage" to resign if ill health prevented him from "lead[ing] the church with authority." A year later, after Lehmann protested that his remarks were taken out of context and said he wasn't calling for John Paul's departure, the late pontiff elevated him to the college of cardinals.

Before this morning's announcement, the mantle of the chairmanship's "heir apparent" has long fallen on the incoming archbishop of Munich and Freising, Reinhard Marx. Named in November to the post held by Pope Benedict from 1977-81, Marx's installation in Munich is scheduled for Candlemas Day, 2 February.

Last week, the Pope received his closest adviser on his homeland's affairs, Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne, in an evening audience.

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Hail to the Chief

In a pointed show of independence, the German bishops have elected Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg as the new chairman of their influential conference.

Zollitsch, 69, succeeds Cardinal Karl Lehmann of Mainz, who announced his retirement from the post midway through his fourth six-year term.

Lutheran leaders and figures from other faiths welcomed the choice, as did lay Catholic groups and Germany's two main political parties, the Social Democrats and Christian Democrats.

Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the choice, saying "Zollitsch approaches people with great openness and addresses their needs and concerns."

Germany's 25 million Catholics are organized in 27 dioceses. The chairman of the bishop's conference speaks for them in public, but has no especial doctrinal authority.

Zollitsch, who has been an archbishop since June 2003 and already oversees the church's national payroll, has been described as a liberal. He once said he would prefer priestly celibacy to be voluntary, not a rule.

He was chosen for a six-year term by his brother bishops at a meeting in Wuerzburg.

His similarity in age and positions to Lehmann indicated a choice for continuity.

"We are theologically and personally so close that you'll find it hard to see a difference," Zollitsch said.

The bishops passed over another, more conservative candidate, Reinhard Marx, 54, who has been freshly enthroned as archbishop of Munich.

Lehmann said it would do Marx good to deal with the challenges of the new archdiocese first.

Marx's auxiliary bishop, Engelbert Siebler, said, "I expect Marx will be elected to the job in six years."

Observers said the choice also indicated a continued mood of independence among the 69 bishops towards Pope Benedict XVI.

The ordinary of the Pope's private secretary, Msgr Georg Ganswein, Zollitsch was a simple priest on staff in the Freiburg curia at his 2003 appointment.

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Nunc Dimittis

On this feast of the Presentation, Benedict XVI accepted the resignation of his successor as archbishop of Munich and Freising, Cardinal Frederich Wetter. Indicating that the Bavarian Pope is still considering his choices for the next bearer of Corbinian's Load and the leadership of his native diocese, no successor was named to Wetter, who turns 79 later this month.

Shown here with his predecessor during the papal homecoming in Bavaria last September, the cardinal was named to replace then-Cardinal Ratzinger six months after the native son archbishop left for Rome and the top job at the CDF. He was elevated to the college of cardinals in 1985, and despite holding the metropolitan post of Germany's historical Catholic heartland, has largely taken a back seat on the public stage to Cardinals Joachim Meisner of Cologne, the country's senior churchman, and Karl Lehmann of Mainz, the president of the German episcopal conference.

If the current German leadership were given a similar stay of retirement as that granted Wetter, Benedict's pick to lead Munich and Freising's 1.3 million Catholics could well end up being the lone major personnel move he makes in his homeland. Cardinal Meisner -- a Ratzinger favorite -- turned 73 on Christmas Day, and the other two German cardinals (Lehmann and Georg Sterzinsky of Berlin) both turn 71 in the coming months.

Europe's largest nation, which hasn't received a new cardinal since the red hat was given Lehmann and the late Johannes Joachim Degenhardt of Paderborn in the 2001 mega-crop, could well end up getting two at an impending consistory (expected for June) if the pontiff decides to elevate his Bavarian successor quickly alongside Degenhardt's heir, the 58 year-old Archbishop Hans-Josef Becker.

Also in things German today, the Pope accepted the resignation of Bishop Franz Kamphaus of Limburg. The circumstances for the timing are unknown, but Kamphaus is entering retirement exactly on his 75th birthday.

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Chanel, Gucci, Prada, Ganswein

If this man has his way, the revolution will be sartorially fabulous. The Guardian takes a good look at Georg -- a piece memorably entitled "Thou Shalt Not Drool":

Over the past four months, the Italian press has also swooned over the 49-year-old German priest, who is known in Italy as Don Georgio. In the grey and elderly world of the Vatican, it is hardly surprising that Gänswein - a keen tennis player and excellent skier who even has a pilot's licence - has become the centre of attention. Last month, the Italian edition of Vanity Fair compared Gänswein to the actor George Clooney, while the magazine Chi opened that he was "as fascinating as Hugh Grant".

The model secretary gives the impression of being of one mind -- and one being -- with his boss.

"I think he is very dangerous," Daniel Deckers, the author of a biography of Germany's leading liberal cardinal, Karl Lehmann, said. "He's part of a small but very powerful group within the Catholic church. He will use his power to push Ratzinger in a certain direction."

Deckers recalls travelling to Rome to meet Gänswein. "He's a good guy. He's very eloquent and can be very charming. But he came right up to me and said: 'Oh, you don't like us.' He referred to himself and Ratzinger as 'us', as if the two of them were an institution."

I wonder if he'd count Josef Clemens as "us." Prob'ly not.

Not to be outdone, something is revealed which has been ringing in my ears for several months:

In the Vatican, Gänswein and Ratzinger dine together, recently entertaining Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, the German socialite, according to reports in the Italian press.

The Romans absolutely love Gloria. Just ask them. Word 'round the campfire -- well, word Gloria was furiously spreading 'round the campfire in Cologne -- has the Pope (and Georg, of course) staying at the TNT compound in Regensburg on the great homecoming tour scheduled to take place in Fall, 2006. If that goes forward, it will bring back some memories for Ratzi: he and Ingrid met at a concert hosted by the TNTs in the summer of 1991....

And best of all is this catty leak:

Gänswein's critics even accuse him of turning the Pope into a fashion victim. This summer, Ratzinger and his secretary went on holiday to the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo, near Rome, as well as to the Italian Alps at Valle D'Aosta. While both men were hiking in the hills, the Pope appeared in public wearing a Nike hat, designer Serengeti sunglasses and a Cartier watch. "This is Gänswein's style. It's his handwriting," one religious affairs writer said. "This is something I don't understand."

Hmmmm... and, for good measure, some Meisner-lieben:

In Germany, the Catholic church is divided more or less between two figures - the liberal-conservative Cardinal Lehmann, the head of the German archbishop's conference, and the ultra-conservative Cardinal Joachim Meisner, the Archbishop of Cologne. Both men were with the Pope last week. But it is no secret as to which Bishop the Vatican favours. "Gänswein is an opponent of Lehmann," one source in the German Catholic church said. "One of Ratzinger's great weaknesses is that his judgment of people isn't always sufficient. He has a small out-reach."

What a piece!

PHOTO: DPA

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PopeTrip Looming, Berlin Falls Open

In September, the Pope is scheduled to make another visit to his homeland -- a state visit to Germany this time, set to climax with B16's first papal trek to Berlin.

Now, though, the first German pontiff in a thousand years will face an important call: picking his host.

This morning, Benedict accepted the resignation of Berlin's longtime archbishop, Cardinal Georg Sterzinsky, all of a month after the capital prelate reached the retirement age of 75 and without a successor chosen.

Named bishop of Berlin -- then a non-metropolitan church -- in 1990 and a cardinal the following year, Sterzinsky became the city's first archbishop in 1994. The cardinal is said to have been in poor health for some time, hence the quick departure.

While B16 has been uniquely generous in extending his countrymens' time in office past their 75th birthdays -- the Pope's own successor in Munich, Cardinal Frederich Wetter, was kept in post even after turning 80 -- the reality remains that, with three of the country's resident cardinals at or near retirement age, the Berlin opening opens the most significant change of senior leadership the German church has seen in decades.

At the helm of what's often called Europe's wealthiest archdiocese, the German bench's leading conservative -- and its senior prelate closest to the pontiff -- Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne is 77, but expected to remain until after a Eucharistic Congress recently set for 2013 to mark the 1,700th anniversary of its local church. Meanwhile, the country's most prominent progressive voice -- the longtime chair of the German bishops, Cardinal Karl Lehmann of Mainz -- turns 75 in May.

Then bishop of Berlin, Meisner was made a cardinal in 1983, the same year Lehmann was named to Mainz.

In both cases, however, Der Deutschepapst will only have a limited say in who takes the posts. Under the terms of the concordat governing Germany's relations with the Holy See, both sees retain provision for the election of the diocesan bishop by their respective cathedral chapters, with Rome confirming the choice. Still, the groups of clerics are bound to choose from the three-name terna for the post presented by the Vatican.

In his one major appointment at home to date, in late 2007 the Pope named Bishop Reinhard Marx of Trier as archbishop of Munich and Freising -- the post Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger himself held from 1977-81.

Having won plaudits for an especially deft reponse to last year's outbreak of sex-abuse revelations in Germany, Marx (above) was elevated to the college of cardinals at last November's consistory. At 57, the media-savvy sociologist -- a co-drafter of this pontificate's social manifesto Caritas in Veritate -- is the youngest member of the papal "Senate" by close to a year.

Benedict's third visit to Germany as Pope after 2005's World Youth Day in Cologne and the following year's "homecoming" in Bavaria, September's state visit is expected to take the pontiff to Freiburg and Erfurt beyond its leg in Berlin.

PHOTOS: Reuters(2)

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Of Cardinals and Climate Change

The cardinal-president of the German bishops is urging his countrymen to drive green:

Cardinal Karl Lehmann said in Bild newspaper on Thursday that the period of 40 days before Easter in the Christian calendar "requires us to rethink our lifestyle."

"Far too often, we do things that are harmful to our fellow citizens and the environment.

"Let us use Lent to make a personal contribution to improving our climate by having car 'fast.'

"Preserving creation is a duty which falls to all of us," Lehmann, the chairman of the German bishops' conference, said.

...meanwhile, following in the footsteps of another vox Clara Pell, Australia's senior prelate bespoke a "Where's the Beef?" on the same question earlier this week:

We have been subjected to a lot of nonsense about climate disasters as some zealots have been painting extreme scenarios to frighten us. They claim ocean levels are about to rise spectacularly, that there could be the occasional tsunami as high as an eight story building, the Amazon basin could be destroyed as the ice cap in the Arctic and in Greenland melts.

An overseas magazine called for Nuremberg-style trials for global warming skeptics while a U.S.A. television correspondent compared skeptics to “holocaust deniers”.

A local newspaper editorial’s complaint about the doomsdayers’ religious enthusiasm is unfair to mainstream Christianity. Christians don’t go against reason although we sometimes go beyond it in faith to embrace probabilities. What we were seeing from the doomsdayers was an induced dose of mild hysteria, semi-religious if you like, but dangerously close to superstition.

I am deeply skeptical about man-made catastrophic global warming, but still open to further evidence. I would be surprised if industrial pollution, and carbon emissions, had no ill effect at all. But enough is enough.

A few fixed points might provide some light. We know that enormous climate changes have occurred in world history, e.g. the Ice Ages and Noah’s flood, where human causation could only be negligible. Neither should it be too surprising to learn that the media during the last 100 years has alternated between promoting fears of a coming Ice Age and fear of global warming!...

The evidence on warming is mixed, often exaggerated, but often reassuring. Global warming has been increasing constantly since 1975 at the rate of less than one fifth of a degree centigrade per decade. The concentration of carbon dioxide increased surface temperatures more in winter than in summer and especially in mid and high latitudes over land, while there was a global cooling of the stratosphere.

The East Anglia university climate research unit found that global temperatures did not increase between 1998 – 2005 and a recent NASA satellite found that the Southern Hemisphere has not warmed in the past 25 years. Is mild global warming a Northern phenomenon?

While we might have been alarmed by the sighting of an iceberg off Dunedin as large as an aircraft carrier we should be consoled by the news that the Antarctic is getting colder and the ice is growing there.

...and so it continues.

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He Ain't Goin Anywhere

Cardinal Karl Lehmann has been elected to a fourth term as president of the extremely influential German Bishops' Conference.

The 69 year-old bishop of Mainz and leader of German Catholicism's moderate-to-progressive wing attained the required supermajority of two-thirds on the first ballot of today's voting, according to a wire report.

Known for a propensity toward blunt speech (he was the first senior prelate to advance the option of papal resignation), Lehmann has served as president of the German Bishops since 1987. His re-election to another six year term will bring him to his 75th birthday in 2011.

PHOTO: AP/Max Heydenreich

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The Francis Inquisition – Amid Tumult on Amoris and Abuse, Pope Switches Hands at CDF

Capping a week of shockwaves at the topmost levels of the Roman Curia, at Roman Noon this Saturday, the Pope declined to reconfirm Cardinal Gerhard Müller as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the close of the German's first five-year mandate, and handed the reins of the "Holy Office" to its longtime #2 official, Archbishop Luis Ladaria SJ.

Despite the delicacy of the formal language, the move can indeed be viewed as Francis' ouster of the 69 year-old German, who brought a combination of firmness on moral teaching and affinity for liberation theology to the Doctrine office upon his appointment by then-Pope Benedict XVI five years ago tomorrow.

Under normal circumstances, a pontiff's renewal of a Curial prefect for successive quinquennial terms is a pro forma act done without public notification.

Himself a veteran collaborator of Joseph Ratzinger over the latter's quarter-century at the CDF's helm, Ladaria, 73, has served as the congregation's secretary since 2008. With his ascent to the top post, the Spanish Jesuit takes on the additional duties linked to the role: the presidencies of the International Theological Commission, the Pontifical Biblical Commission and the Ecclesia Dei Commission, the lead liaison for the church's relations with traditionalist groups and questions on the use of the pre-Conciliar "Extraordinary Form" of the Roman rite.

On a related front, Ecclesia Dei is the Curial organ responsible for the ongoing reconciliation talks with the Society of St Pius X, which have notched multiple major inroads through the last year, paving the way to the Swiss-based group's potential return to communion with the Catholic church. Yet another major item in the main congregation's portfolio – of particular interest in the English-speaking world – is its complete jurisdiction over the Personal Ordinariates for former Anglicans, which were established in England, North America and Australia by Benedict following 2009's Anglicanorum coetibus.

The historic successor to the "Holy Office of the Inquisition" – rechristened after Vatican II – the congregation's founding dates to 1542. The principal Congregation of the Curia, amid Francis' ongoing reform CDF (its Sant'Uffizio headquarters seen below) is now viewed as ranking third among the dicasteries, after the Secretariats of State and for the Economy.

In making the shift official roughly 18 hours after reports began to swirl – yet could not be independently verified – that Müller was told of his departure in an audience yesterday with the Pope, the Holy See gave no indication of the 69 year-old cardinal's next assignment. While some speculation has tipped the theological heavyweight for the role of Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, as of late Friday Whispers ops close to that post's current holder, Cardinal Edwin O'Brien, were blindsided on learning of said rumors, and relayed that the 78 year-old New Yorker – who was en route to the US for this holiday weekend – had not been informed of any move.

As for Müller's potential landing spots, it's worth noting that no major posts in his homeland – where he served as bishop of B16's adopted base of Regensburg until his transfer to Rome – are currently open. Closing out a recent flurry of top-level moves in Germany, the last key post to go was Mainz, where Francis named Peter Kohlgraf – a 50 year-old pastoral theologian – in April as successor to Cardinal Karl Lehmann, the progressive titan who chaired the country's formidable bishops' conference for two decades.

While the now-former CDF chief had drawn considerable attention for staking out a skeptical position on Francis' potential openings in Amoris Laetitia toward the civilly remarried and others in difficult situations vis a vis church teaching, it bears no less recalling that Müller had come in for ferocious criticism by survivors of clergy sex-abuse and their advocates given the office's role as the church's global clearinghouse of those cases. Above all, the cardinal was roundly blasted by the prominent Irish survivor Marie Collins, who resigned her seat on the Pope's new Commission for the Protection of Minors (PCPM) in April over the congregation's refusal to comply with Francis' directive that they reply to inquiries sent by victims, then continued to rap Müller for not changing course after the fact.

Among other related issues was the CDF's ostensible resistance to the pontiff's 2015 push to establish a tribunal to hear cases of abuse of office by bishops, a block that forced Francis to devise a workaround in norms issued last year. In a move that was taken as a sign of papal frustration on the accountability front, in mid-January the Pope conspicuously named the head of the PCPM, Boston's Cardinal Seán O'Malley OFM Cap., to the congregation's membership despite the Capuchin's lack of an advanced background in theology.

Along the way, too, Francis had gradually undercut Müller's standing by openly highlighting other figures on theological questions, most prominently Cardinals Walter Kasper and Christoph Schönborn, and the Argentine Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández, the pontiff's longtime confidant, widely reputed to be the "ghostwriter" of Papa Bergoglio's major texts.

Developing... you were told there was "more to come," eh?

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More Mix

Another quick round-up:

• Last month, in a letter to a Catholic-Orthodox event on the Greek island of Tinos, the Pope sent a special word to express his spiritual unity with Greek Orthodox Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens, who's been under treatment for liver cancer in a Miami hospital in anticipation of a transplant. In his message to the Tinos symposium, dedicated to St John Chrysostom, Benedict XVI said that "in a truly special way," he wished for the 68 year-old archbishop's "full restoration of health" and his quick return to ministry. Earlier today, however, it was reported that Christodoulos suffered a setback as doctors discovered that the cancer had spread, halting the transplant operation, which had been in progress. While a priority toward closer bonds with Orthodoxy is a particular hallmark of the current pontificate, the senior hierarch of the Greek Orthodox church has maintained longstanding ties with Rome; Christodoulos received John Paul II on the late pontiff's 2001 journey to Greece and has been a key player in the Catholic-Orthodox dynamic, which has become increasingly warm in recent years. In other East-West news, the ground continues to be smoothed toward a meeting between Pope Benedict and the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II, with current hopes (expressed even by the patriarch last week during his visit to Paris) tipping a sit-down to take place within two years, with potential meeting-sites already said to be under consideration.

• The last living sibling of a beloved "modern saint" has gone to be with her brother; Luciana Frassati Gawronska, sister of Bl Pier Giorgio Frassati, died over the weekend at a family home in Italy, aged 105. Raised to the rank below sainthood in 1990, her blessed sibling -- who died at 24 in 1925 -- was renowned for his zeal, his humanity, his faith expressed especially in love for the poor and a commitment to the common good. Pier Giorgio Frassati (whose prayer-card is taped to the dashboard of a good friend's car) has inspired not a few current twentysomethings (and some older folks, too) as, with his mountain-climbing, activism and immersion in the culture of his time, he lived out St Irenaeus' great dictum that "Man fully alive is the glory of God." In a message to Frassati devotees announcing the news, the head of a group founded to promote the blessed's legacy said that "now, Luciana has the chance to meet Jesus, the Great Friend for whom her brother gave his life, and to see again her dear and good brother, to whom she was so strongly and devotedly linked." Among her contributions to the Frassati legacy, Luciana wrote a book on her brother's "Last Days." Pier Giorgio's feast is celebrated on the 4th of July.

• Speaking of early July, not a few gripes were heard on the release then of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's Pope-approved Q&A that's better-known as the "One True Church" document. Contrary to perceptions, however, not all of the complaints about the text -- which underscored both "the full identity of the church of Christ with the Catholic church" and the Holy See's stance that post-Reformation branches of Christianity are "deprived" of standing as churches, "according to Catholic doctrine" -- have come from the church's lower ranks. Opening the plenary of the German bishops' conference with a two-hour address in late September, Cardinal Karl Lehmann of Mainz said of the Roman release that "It is not appropriate to repeat and republish reminders and admonitions on binding church teaching, which are moreover frequently incomplete or abbreviated, within a period of a few years -- even if they are necessary." First reported in English by The Tablet's Christa Pongratz-Lippitt in Vienna, the address by the president of the German episcopate was termed "striking" and, she wrote, "may signal a new intent to defend the reforms of the [Second Vatican] Council" on the part of Papa Ratzi's mitred countrymen. Pongratz-Lippitt also noted that "unanimously and with no abstentions," the German conference also "agreed on a 10-point guideline" to govern celebrations of the 1962 Missal in the 27 dioceses of Europe's largest country. Among the norms: a pro tem ban on the creation of personal parishes for the faithful attached to the Extraordinary Rite, and that "priests who celebrate the [1962 Form] had to also accept the Ordinary [Form] of 1970." The guidelines were reported to have come into force last week... whether they're permissible given the provisions of Summorum Pontificum, however, is another question entirely.
  

• Keeping an eye on next month's anticipated consistory, one glaring omission of B16's first class of cardinal-electors was the absence of an appointee from Africa; the Pope did give the red hat to the retired Ghanaian Archbishop Peter Poreku Dery in March of last year, but Dery turns 90 in May. This time around, however, Benedict might've found his man south of the Sahara by way of naming him -- on Saturday, the pontiff appointed the head of Kenya's episcopal conference, Coadjutor Archbishop John Njue of Nyeri, to the East African country's senior post, the archbishopric of Nairobi. Njue, 63, succeeds Archbishop Raphael Ndingi Mwana'a Nzeki, who reached the retirement age of 75 on Christmas 2006. A two-time seminary rector and product of Rome's Urbaniana and Lateran universities, Njue was elected to his third term as chairman of the Kenyan bishops last year. While his immediate predecessor didn't receive the call to the college (of cardinals) over the course of his nine-year stint in the capital see of 1.2 million Catholics, no one who ever met the nation's first prince of the church has ever forgotten him. Despite the requisite five-year waiting period, a popular movement to open the canonization process for Maurice Michael Otunga is already running at full tilt. The first native Kenyan to serve as Nairobi's chief shepherd -- a post he held for 26 years -- Otunga died in 2003 at age 80. Elsewhere on the continent that's been the vanguard of a burgeoning Catholic presence in the global south, still awaiting new management is the 3.5 million-member archdiocese of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has been vacant since the January death of Cardinal Frederic Etsou-Nazbi-Bamungwabi.
  

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Old Church, New World

As new media moments from last weekend's Consistory go, this one's hard to beat: during a lull in Saturday's "courtesy visits" to the new red-hats, the freshly-elevated archbishop of Berlin, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, took to checking a soccer score on his iPhone.

According to a caption on the capital church's Facebook page -- thanks to Georg for the shot -- the Cologne native was keeping an eye on his hometown side's match against Nuremberg.

Its jerseys featuring a silhouette of the city's famous cathedral, FC Köln lost 2-1.

A protege of the Nordrhein's Cardinal Joachim Meisner -- the closest top German cleric to Pope Benedict, and himself a onetime occupant of the Berlin chair -- Woelki was named archbishop of the relatively small Berlin fold in July, just prior to the German pontiff's September state visit to his homeland.

All of 55, with his elevation, the Opus Dei-trained theologian and former seminary rector is now the youngest member of the College of Cardinals, replacing another German -- Joseph Ratzinger's 58 year-old successor in Munich, the motorbiking sociologist Cardinal Reinhard Marx -- as the junior prelate of the papal "Senate." (On a related note, just turned 62, New York's new Cardinal Timothy Dolan is the seventh youngest of the now-214 member "club," and Galveston-Houston's Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, 63 in May, is tenth.)

Der Deutschepapst already having tapped the young clerics to fill half his native turf's four traditional cardinalatial sees, Germany's other two prime ecclesial posts are likewise soon to turn over: head of the Mainz church since 1983, the longtime head of the country's bishops Cardinal Karl Lehmann turns 76 this spring, and Meisner -- who's led one of global Catholicism's wealthiest dioceses since 1989 -- is now 78.

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Papa Ratzi's Hometown Heir?

After a ten-month wait, Pope Benedict has reportedly chosen a new archbishop of Munich and Freising, the post he held from 1977-81.

According to today's edition of the Bavarian paper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the name of Bishop Reinhard Marx of Trier was forwarded to the state government for its consent earlier this week. Under the provisions of the concordat between the Holy See and the Catholic-heavy southern land, the civil authority enjoys veto power over episcopal appointments.

The paper reported that the Vatican is expected to announce the move on Friday.

Marx, 54, would succeed Cardinal Frederich Wetter, whose retirement was accepted in early February.

While the social scientist with a reputation for mixing it up in the public square is seen as cheerful, "larger-than-life" and a whiz with the media, he's also said to "know no pardon" when church discipline is violated. As Papa Ratzinger's first major appointee in his homeland and head of the 1.8 million-member Munich church, the appointment would catapult Marx into the hierarchy's top rank... and not just in Germany.

Ordained an auxiliary bishop of his native Paderborn on his 43rd birthday in 1996, Marx was named to Trier -- Germany's oldest diocese, founded before the 3rd century -- in 2001. Over the last three years, Marx has been given three new auxiliaries to assist him in the diocese of 1.5 million, two of whom are in their early 40s.

In German church circles, the news is being greeted with "surprise." Benedict was expected to give Munich a nominee with closer personal ties to the papal apartment, and was especially seen as keen to name a Bavarian to lead the church in the nation's Catholic heartland.

Previously cited as a potential successor to Cardinals Joachim Meisner of Cologne or Georg Sterzinsky in Berlin -- with the capital post buzzed due to the rising prelate's policy savvy -- Benedict's choice to send Marx instead to his hometown diocese would further burnish the latter's likelihood to eventually take the helm of the powerful German bishops' conference in succession to its longtime head, Cardinal Karl Lehmann of Mainz.

Apostolic administrator since leaving the archbishop's office, Wetter turns 80 in February. Ergo, the appearance of the cigar-chomping "happy warrior" on his Munich predecessor's next list of new cardinals would seem a safe bet.

SVILUPPO: In its brief, the German news agency DPA dubs the reported appointee "left-of-center," while a "moderate conservative" on matters doctrinal.

PHOTO: DPA

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Reinhard Marx the Spot

Fresh from a private audience earlier this week with his second predecessor, Archbishop-elect Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising formally touched down in his new charge yesterday in advance of his Saturday installation.

As rain fell on the Marienplatz -- the great square outside Munich's Cathedral of Our Lady -- the long-awaited successor to 79 year-old Cardinal Frederich Wetter performed the traditional homage to the Mariensaule, the statue of Mary that's stood atop a pillar there since 1638 as a "monument of peace."

Joined by the city's mayor and other top politicians as a large crowd looked on, the rite was the final "station" of the customary three-stop tour that sees each incoming head of Germany's Catholic heartland whisked to the ancient see's most venerable foundations: the 12th century Benedictine monastery at Scheyern, and Ss. Peter and Paul at Feldmoching, along the city's northern edge, where a church was first built in the 6th century.

At Saturday's installation, Marx becomes the 73rd successor of St Corbinian, the "apostle of Bavaria" who settled at Freising in the year 723, his relics still enshrined in its cathedral.

The Pope surprised most observers with his November appointment of the 54 year-old bishop of Trier to the post for which Fr Joseph Ratzinger was made a bishop and held from 1977-81.

Described as "outspoken" and a "larger-than-life" character who's shown a flair for mixing it up in Germany's political and media circles, the sociologist-by-training -- and longtime head of the episcopate's social justice efforts -- had largely been viewed as in line for the archbishopric of Berlin. After an unusually protracted yearlong vacancy, however, his dispatch instead to Papa Ratzi's home diocese places an even more pointed stamp of papal approval on him, one which could well see the sometime biker (above right) riding off in mid-February with the chair of the German bishops' conference in succession to its longtime head, Cardinal Karl Lehmann of Mainz, who cited a "necessary generational shift" at the helm among his reasons for leaving the influential post midway through his fourth six-year term.

With Wetter's 80th birthday just three weeks away and the pontiff's longing for his homeland remaining strong, better still are Marx's odds of donning the red hat of a cardinal at his predecessor's next consistory.

In accord with the longstanding practice of Munich's archbishops, the post's 13th holder has incorporated the traditional Moor's head onto his coat of arms, but leaving Corbinian's famous pack bear behind in Rome... with the Pope.

PHOTOS: Thomas Klinger(1,3)

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THE CONSISTORY: The Protocols

Oh Good God, this'll be a busy day. But I love it -- I got into all this thanks to a consistory many moons ago, so these events mean as much to me as many of you would consider the births of your children.

In testament to this, I do have a (real) scarlet biretta and zucchetto sitting on my bookshelf, currently in my line of sight. (Both were gifts from Eminent friends.)

So as to avoid confusion, and so you can sound smart at cocktail parties and impress your respective audiences, here is the way the next month runs.

What happened this morning was simply the Pope's announcement of intent to elevate the mentioned prelates to the College of Cardinals -- the names given today are not yet "new cardinals." For obvious reasons, this is done so that the requisite logistical arrangements can be made without fear of indiscretion. The designates were notified of their selections by phone within the last three days.

Even now, though, nothing is set in stone, and Benedict XVI may add to or change the list if he so chooses.

This happened in 2001. On 21 January of that year, John Paul announced his intent to create 37 cardinals a month later, and everyone thought that was it. But given the election of Lubomyr Husar as major-archbishop of Lviv on 26 January, the late Pope then returned to The Window on the following Sunday and announced that Husar would receive the red hat, and six others alongside him (Karl Lehmann among them), bringing the grand total for the 2001 Cardinals' Class to a mind-blowing record of 44. Remember well that, as recently as a decade earlier, the triennial number was half that, and Joseph Ratzinger himself was one of a class of just four cardinals created in 1977 -- the gathering known around town as the "Benelli consistory" because of the man for whom, for all intents and purposes, it was held: the patron of those famous widows (three of whom eventually became cardinals in their own right).

From today, the honorees may -- in fact, should -- be known as "cardinal-designate" (cardinals are not elected), but everything else waits -- no "Eminence," no reds, none of that -- until the consistory itself. (Gammarelli's strictly-enforced custom is that, aside from the people doing the fittings and the cardinal-designate's secretary, but no one is to see the Eminence-to-be in his new robes until he walks out for the ceremony at which he receives the red hat. Period.)

Even in the world of the Vatican, the title "cardinal-designate" is verboten; until the day the biretta is conferred and the names published in consistory, those chosen remain referred to in the episcopal style of "S.E. Mons," with no indicator of their coming status. And if, God forbid, the Pope died before the consistory were held, the designates would not be permitted to enter a conclave and vote as they have not of yet been created and published. Their appointments would effectively die along with the Pope who announced his intentions, and it would be up to a new pontiff whether the wishes of his predecessor would be honored or not.

The Consistory proper, to be held on 24 March, takes place within the context of the Liturgy of the Word, the Pope and all prelates in choir dress. (The cardinals-designate arrive bareheaded and are seated before the papal chair; the existing members of the College sit to the Pope's side.) It features two papal speeches: an exhortation to the new cardinals, and the homily for the worldwide audience.

In times past, there were several consistories for a new incardination of the Roman clergy's honorary, and most prominent, members. First, a secret consistory (in the presence of the existing College) would be held at which the Pope would publish the list of his nominees, conferring on them the style "Eminence" and the right to vote in a conclave. Cardinals-designate resident in Rome would be "notified" of their selection in a ceremony at their proper residences and handed the biglietto, or "ticket," of their nomination. They would then proceed to the semi-public consistory, held in the Papal Apartment, at which they would be given the biretta, followed by the public consistory, usually in the Sistine Chapel, at which the galero -- now abolished as an active item of vesture -- would be conferred. (One cardinal who didn't receive the galero in the 1960s was so infuriated as to tear down his predecessors' hats from his Cathedral ceiling. No lie.)

Since 1988, there has been but one ceremony, and the names have been created and published in a single public consistory. The designees are vested with the zucchetto and biretta toward the end of the rite, after which they greet the entire College individually and then take their places alongside them.


PHOTO: AP/Pier Paolo Cito

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A Quick Cologne Primer

As B16 enters Cologne Cathedral, he is surrounded by two very distinct "rings" of prelates.

Running advance, as usual, is Bishop Renato Boccardo, the number-two man at the Governorato (the body which manages the Vatican City State). A former official at State, Boccardo has been the papal "travel agent" since the retirement of Roberto Tucci in 2001 and was ordained a bishop last year, initially assigned as the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

The Popemobile has two additional seats aside from the Pope's. One is always taken by the secretary (Georg, who is making himself omnipresent today), the other by the bishop of the place being visited (a very happy Cardinal Joachim Meisner).

But in the "inner ring" immediately surrounding him, there are the following individuals:

• Meisner
• Sodano
• Ganswein
• Boccardo
• Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity (the dicastery charged with planning WYD)... As a sidenote, Rylko is a Krakow protege of Pope Wojtyla's who served as Dziwisz's assistant when JP was archbishop of Krakow.
  

The "second ring" is more a security necessity than a commentary on who's in and who's out. But it's still of interest. There we find:

• Bishop Josef Clemens, secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity (Cardinal Ratzinger's beloved private secretary of 20 years)
• Archbishop Piero Marini, master-genius of papal liturgical ceremonies
  
• Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, sostituto of the Secretariat of State (the papal chief of staff... well, when State's behaving itself)
• Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity (the point-man for tomorrow's visit to Cologne's Synagogue in his capacity as president of the commission for Religious Relations with the Jews)
• Cardinal Karl Lehmann, bishop of Mainz and president of the German Bishops' Conference
• Bishop Franz-Joseph Bode, bishop of Osnabruck and chair of the German Bishops' Commission on Youth

Also in this circle is someone I haven't seen in awhile: the "second secretary," who has apparently been retained from the last pontificate, John Paul's beloved Msgr. Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki.

The Pope has been received in the cathedral to the strains of Anton Bruckner's Ecce Sacerdos Magnus. Interesting pick, and Marini's dictating the pace without betraying any signs of it. The Marini Code is, indeed, a wonder.

UPDATE: Contrary to the previous assumptions, I'm told that Ingrid Stampa is present in the papal entourage. I haven't seen her, but then again the cameras are lucky to have five seconds of good feed each, given the pressing crowd and overpowering security. Like her boss, she's also very good at being inconspicuous.

More soon.

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In Havana, The Revolution Continues – After Cuban Church's "Prince," Pope Picks A Pastor

For the last four years, this has arguably been the global church's most important pending appointment... and over that time, the stakes have only increased.

After the long wait – and a geopolitical shift that revolutionized the context – it's finally come to pass: at Roman Noon this Tuesday, the Pope named Juan García Rodríguez, the 68 year-old archbishop of Camagüey in central Cuba, as archbishop of Havana and de facto chief of the island's church, retiring Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino after a landmark reign of almost 35 years.

In an unusual shot for its time, the archbishop-elect – then the president of the Cuban bishops – is seen above at the right hand of President Raul Castro during the 2010 dedication of the new national seminary outside Havana, which marked the island's first opening of a religious building since the 1959 Revolution that swept Communism into power. And with today's nod, García – a native son of the diocese he's led until today – now fully trades the intimate, earthy confines of "cow country" for the religious and political gauntlet of the capital in an ongoing moment of massive transition, one whose outcome is far from settled.

On one side, the incoming archbishop becomes the church's principal voice in Cuba and its lead representative to the Communist government, a role which saw Ortega secure major incremental concessions for the church's freedom from the officially atheist state, but likewise made him a magnet for scorn among the influential exile community, which accused the cardinal of turning a blind eye to the regime's human-rights violations in exchange for the increased openings for Catholic life and activity in the open.

As if navigating that tightrope wasn't enough, the 2.8 million-member Havana church is said to be in need of better cohesion in light of both the diversity of its presbyterate and a sense of listlessness at the helm given Ortega's priority on working the political stage both at home and abroad, a legacy whose capstone came in the cardinal's role as a linchpin intermediary in securing the watershed 2014 agreement between Cuba and the US which marked the most significant breakthrough between the estranged countries since the 1959 Revolution. Already a figure close to the now-Pope – whose game-changing "mission statement" given during the pre-Conclave General Congregations of the cardinals was released by Ortega days after Francis' election – the Cuban's victory lap saw another triumphant moment on Palm Sunday when, minutes after President Obama became the first US head of state to visit the island since the 1920s, the cardinal was the First Family's tour-guide as they visited Havana Cathedral (right).

While Ortega's critics have seen fit to deride him for his realpolitik strategy and the "prince"-like style he took up as the capital's archbishop, one meaningful backstory nonetheless bears recalling: like many other young Cuban priests and religious who chose not to flee the island during what's been called "the worst repression" of the faith in the Revolution's wake, the future cardinal was imprisoned in a government "re-education camp" with the intent to break the remnant's commitment to the church and their ministry. As a ranking op mused about the experience, "the generation that stayed went to hell and back [to] keep the faith alive" in their homeland.

Amid the multi-tiered scene, following the Pope's mobilization of his diplomatic A-team to facilitate the pact – which brought the restoration of full bilateral relations and a major easing of half-century old financial and travel restrictions for Americans – the choice of Ortega's successor only became a more charged matter for Francis and his team, especially as one of its key players (the Sostituto of the Secretariat of State, Archbishop Angelo Becciu) was himself Nuncio to Havana from 2009-11.

Indeed, at the US deal's inception, the delicacy surrounding the negotiations was so intense that when Becciu's successor on the island, Italian Archbishop Bruno Musaro, aimed to publicly accuse the Cuban government of "human and civil degradation" during a 2014 Mass while on vacation at home, he was quickly whisked out of the post. Yet even as the initial thaw has now been expanded to include regular US flights and cruises to Cuba and an ever-increasing flood of American investment has been allowed to pour onto its shores, last week's Communist Party Congress set the stage for more long-term tumult as Fidel Castro alluded to facing death in a rare public appearance, while the gathering's choice of hard-line figures for its top leadership posts signals little political change should President Raul Castro fulfill his pledge to leave office in 2018. (Whoever succeeds Raul as head of state, last week saw the president's reelection to the party's top post for the next five years.)

Against the challenging backdrop, meanwhile, the most striking thing about Francis' appointee is García's concerted lack of political involvement. Said by those who know him to be "very humble," "low-key" and "bearing the smell" of his flock, a 2013 primer on the Cuban bishops with an eye to Ortega's succession noted that – at least, at the time – the now-chosen prelate hadn't figured much in conversations for Havana, but pointedly perceived the eventual choice as "very much a bishop in the style of Pope Francis: known for his missionary spirit and as a man of prayer with the ability to remain calm in the midst of any storm."

Along these lines, Whispers' Havana Desk relayed that García's name began credibly circulating for the post shortly after Ortega's 50th anniversary as a priest in summer 2014, an event which was notably attended (left) by the Pope's principal North American adviser, Cardinal Seán O'Malley OFM Cap. of Boston, himself a figure with a long history of involvement in Cuban affairs. From the flip-side, meanwhile, with members of his own family living in the exiles' prime base of South Florida – where he was recently spotted on visits – García is no stranger to his opposite end of the 93 Mile strait, either.

On another significant front, having been president of the island's dozen-member bench from 2007-10, García led the Cuban delegation to the decennial plenary of the Latin American bishops at Aparecida in 2007, whose closing message – rooted in a call for the church to engage an ongoing "continental mission" – was drafted by then-Cardinal Bergoglio of Buenos Aires in a document that remains a very clear and specific manifesto of Francis' vision of the church. In his own diocese, meanwhile, the Havana pick is said to have an exemplary, unpretentious closeness with his priests in Camaguey, where he pastored several parishes before his appointment as the lone auxiliary in 1997. He was named to succeed his mentor, Archbishop Adolfo Rodríguez Herrera, five years later.

Asked about the role of bishops in the new evangelization as the lone Cuban present at the 2012 Synod on the topic, García defined his task as "going into the homes of the people.

"When I go out [to the people]," he said, "the priests follow, the deacons follow... the nuns follow, the laity follow, and often, they even get ahead of me."

"A mother doesn't rest," García replied when asked about the church's optimal style of outreach. "She wants to feed, she wants to teach. She always hopes her child says 'yes,' that he might learn, and she has patience and creativity" to accomplish that end.

Boiled down, it doesn't get more Francis than that. And while time will tell for certain whether the Pope's choice of a pastor from his ever-cherished "peripheries" was geared more toward achieving the church's internal conversion – or, indeed, to maintain Ortega's wide berth as the church's Negotiator-in-Chief with the Castros – odds are it's a bit of both. In any case, it's already been said that the choice of his successor has come as a "surprise" even to Ortega, himself.

The first indication of the new state of things is likely to come once the government broaches its rumored intent to "regularize" the fraught status of the island's church – a process which will involve high-wire talks over the return of parish and institutional property seized by the Communists after the fall of Batista – to say nothing of the ostensible, long-frame road toward a concordat: the treaty between the Holy See and Cuba which would establish the rights and conduct of the island's Catholic life in international law.

On the broad scene, with the retirement of the Cuban titan months before his 80th birthday, one last long-reigning cardinal holds the helm of his diocese as his ninth decade quickly approaches: Karl Lehmann of Mainz, long the godfather of German Catholicism's progressive wing, who ages out of his Conclave vote on 16 May.

The most prominent figure by far to express an openness to the resignation of John Paul II as the now-canonized Pope struggled through his final months – a move for which Lehmann was excoriated by conservatives (among other things which wouldn't happen today) – the cardinal chaired the German bench for an extraordinary 21 years as the conference's elected head from 1987 to 2008. Since 2014, the post has been held by Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich – a member of Francis' all-important "Gang of 9," whose ascent has seen him become no less a lightning rod.

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At the "Holy Office," It's Müller Time -- Pope Taps Der Regensburger as "Grand Inquisitor"

Anticipated for months, it's finally official -- at Roman Noon this Monday, the Pope named Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller of Regensburg as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, accepting the retirement of Cardinal William Levada a year after the highest-ranking American in Vatican history reached the canonical age of 75.

With the appointment of the 64 year-old theologian -- the editor of the still-in-production "Complete Works" of Joseph Ratzinger -- Germans now occupy two of the Vatican's top three posts: a level of dominance that, until now, has been enjoyed only by Italians.

Made an archbishop on the move, by seniority Müller will be the first cardinal created by Benedict at his next consistory, which could come in Spring 2013, barring one exception: namely, should the pontiff appoint a new Secretary of State before then who hasn't already received the red hat.

Early last month, the most definitive sign of the impending appointment came when the Pope appointed Müller as a member of the Congregation for Catholic Education and the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity -- a combination that, among the Curia's senior members, has been held only by Levada. As early as January, however, German reports noted that the bishop had been taking refresher courses in Italian.

Once the "supreme" dicastery of the Roman Curia, the roots of the modern-day CDF date to 1542, when Pope Paul III established it as the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition. In the post-Vatican II reforms of Paul VI, the "Holy Office" was given its current name, with a rebooted mandate to encourage and promote theological study beyond its traditional function as the global church's lead guardian of orthodoxy.

A priest of Mainz, the new prefect spent most of his priesthood as a theology professor in Munich before his appointment to Regensburg in 1992. He has served as a member of the congregation since 2002.

Given common perceptions of the current pontificate, it's worth noting that Müller's appointment to lead the CDF survived an attempted subterfuge by some conservatives in Roman circles, who -- among other things -- sought to play up a longstanding friendship the new "Grand Inqusitor" has kept with a leading architect of liberation theology, the Peruvian Dominican Gustavo Gutierrez.

While, for most, any mention of the Bavarian city is likely to evoke one of the most controversial addresses of Benedict's seven-year reign, the 1.2 million-member Regensburg church is the closest thing the Pope has to a "home" diocese. The now-pontiff's last professorship before becoming archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977 was there, and his elder brother, Msgr Georg Ratzinger, directed its cathedral choir (the Domspatzen) from 1964 to 1994. A short drive away in the suburb of Pentling, meanwhile, is the small house off a cul-de-sac that Joseph Ratzinger built in the 1970s for himself and his brother with an eye to their retirement. (As Pope, Benedict was able to return there for a fleeting few minutes during his 2006 "homecoming" trip. In an undated photo, Muller is shown above with the Pope's brother at the Pentling house.)

Named by Benedict to succeed the Pope in the job he held for 23 years within days of his 2005 election, the LA-born Levada -- then the archbishop of San Francisco -- previously worked as a staffer at CDF from 1976-82. As the cardinal's tenure as prefect neared its close, the work of the congregation sparked twin firestorms in the American church and media as, citing "serious doctrinal problems," in late April the office imposed a wide-ranging oversight on the nation's leading umbrella-group of nuns, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, then issued a high-profile warning in early June on a 2006 book on sexual ethics written by another sister, the retired Yale professor Margaret Farley RSM, a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America.

Among CDF's relatively new areas of jurisdiction are several matters of sizable import to the church in the English-speaking world, above all deciding final outcomes to the worldwide church's clergy sex-abuse cases (a task entrusted to Ratzinger in 2001 after a Curial turf-fight), and the implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus, the Pope's 2009 initiative allowing for Anglican groups to enter the Catholic church as collective units, with their own liturgy and governing structures. In the space of just over a year, the latter development has arguably made for the Western church's largest boon of married priests in the millennium since mandatory celibacy became universal policy.

As a result of today's appointment, given that the congregation's top three officials will now be a German, a Spaniard (the secretary, Archbishop Luis Ladaria SJ) and an Italian (the Milanese undersecretary Msgr Damiano Marzotto Caotorta), what effect the new dynamic will have on the Anglophone-centric issues is a key point to watch over the coming months. With Levada's departure, CDF's top English-speaking principal becomes the office's highly-regarded lead "prosecutor" on abuse cases, the Maltese promotor of justice Msgr Charles Scicluna.

With his ascent, the new prefect now likewise becomes president of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, making him -- at least officially -- the prime overseer of the Vatican's doctrine-centric reconciliation effort with the Society of St Pius X.

As previously noted, however, the bulk of the heavy lifting on the top Benedictine priority will largely fall to the newly-named vice president of the office, the Bronx-born Archbishop J. Augustine DiNoia OP, a former #3 at CDF.

At the same time, in a telling sign of the Müller appointment's likely reception in at least some traditionalist circles, while performing a priestly ordination over the weekend in the Regensburg diocese, one of the four SSPX bishops, the Spaniard Alfonso de Galarreta, reportedly "complained" about the Pope's choice for the post, citing a widely-trafficked assertion among opponents to the appointment that, in one of his theological works, Müller had denied the dogma of the Virgin Birth.

As head of the Holy Office, by custom Müller will also serve as president of the International Theological Commission and the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

Beyond its Roman significance, with Germany already home to the Catholic world's two youngest cardinals -- Berlin's Rainer Maria Woelki, 55, and Munich's Reinhard Marx, 58 -- today's appointment further signals Benedict's determination to firmly establish a new generation of leadership in his homeland which will endure long past his pontificate's end. Two further opportunities toward that end aren't far ahead on the horizon as the German church's lead conservative and progressive figures of the last two decades -- respectively Cologne's Cardinal Joachim Meisner and Mainz's Cardinal Karl Lehmann -- are both well past the retirement age. (Notably, the latter prelate was Müller's doktorvater, overseeing his dissertation on Dietrich Bonhöffer, the Protestant theologian hanged by the Nazis.)

Speaking of retirement, while the new prefect-emeritus has long been understood as keen to return to the West Coast, Levada will remain a member of several key Curial offices until his 80th birthday in June 2016.

For many years, the cardinal has owned a condo in his hometown of Long Beach, sharing the getaway with his closest friend of nearly 60 years and successor in San Francisco, Archbishop George Niederauer, whose own transition from office is likewise expected in short order.

Referring to the nearing end of their ministries in his homily at the San Fran Mass marking Niederauer's golden jubilee of priesthood in late April, Levada quoted the poet Robert Browning: "Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand who saith, 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!'"

Having ordained this year's class of priests and transitional deacons just yesterday in his now-former charge, the incoming prefect will take up residence in Rome in time for the Curia's mid-September return from the traditional summer recess. Müller was scheduled to hold a press conference on his appointment as the announcement was made in Rome.

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