A couple of articles from the Italian press, courtesy of our wonderful, helpful and enthusiastic friends at the Papa Ratzinger Forum:

First, on his leavetaking from Genoa, scroll down to a couple of posts at the end of the thread –

Bertone has made himself loved and appreeciated in Genoa for his direct and friendly manner and for having introduced to the Archbishop’s role a style marked by understatement and dialog.

He has met with each of his priests, visiting them in their homes, travelling in his pistachio-colored and slightly battered Panda to see how they live and what they need. Among other things, this has resulted in a sort of gastronomic ‘guide’ regarding the meals for parish priests in his diocese.

He has carried on a dialog with extremists, from Don Baget Bozzo, the ideologue of Forza Italia, and Don Andrea Gallo, the rebel priest of Genoa’s troublesome suburbs.

The city has responded to him with warm sympathy for being close to the ordinary people, for speaking as an ordinary football fan, a juvenile passion that persists today. He has made them reflect on the positions he has taken to defend the right of the Church to take part in the public debate, such as his open condemnation of euthanasia and his recent public denunciations of the Da Vinci Code.

And this one, a little further down:

In the half hour ceremony there was only one small deviation from the simple program thad been announced, which was followed rigorously, without any declarations outside of official communications.

It happened when Cardinal Bertone was halfway through his letter to his co-workers and to his Genoese flock, which he had been reading in front of countless microphones and TV cameras.

“I have loved this Church…” he began, and then he could not proceed.

The Archbishop of Genoa, who had just announced that he had been called to succeed Cardinal Sodano as Secretary of State on September 15, was forced to interrupt himself to master strong emotions which suddenly choked him.

But at that point, applause from his little audience helped him recover, there in the atrium of Genoa’s major seminary, where not only journalists but also many priests, Curial officials and seminarians were present. They had come to the hilltop seminary for Bertone’s scheduled meeting with the presbyterian council of the diocese.

After he had caught his breath, the Archbishop continued, this time rather briskly, saying that he had dedicated “his heart and his efforts for more than three years” to the Church in Genoa, that is, from February 2003 when the ex-Secretary of the CDF and principal co-worker for eight years of the future Benedict XVI came to Genoa as Archbishop….

Yesterday Rome and Genoa were united in a sentiment of mixed joy and emotion. It began as a day like any other, with the Cardinal involved in meetings with his beloved priests who were then invited to an ‘announcement’ to be made at the end of the diocesan meeting which would discuss plans and projects for the next pastoral year.

It was 12:05 when Bertone made the announcement by reading the bulletin issued earlier by the Vatican Press Office. He had received an advance copy early yesterday morning…

Everyone applauded and expected a comment, a witticism, but Bertone did not concede anything beyond protocol and proceeded to read first the letter of the pope to the faithful of Genoa, and then his own, remembering that on June 22, the Church honors two English saints – John Fisher and Thomas More – who were faithful to the Church at the price of their life.

It was a message as clear as when he explained that for him, the nomination represented ‘a Copernican revolution’, but that he asks the Lord “to be able to accompany the Pope in this promising season of a new evangelization.”

“Now is not the time to draw up an account of my episcopal service in Genoa, he said, “nor is it the time for greetings. I entrust my fuiture ministry to the Madonna of Protection who will watch over me even from her shrine in the Vatican Gardens.”