From the Papa Ratzinger Forum, various articles: just go here and scroll around – I don’t know how to link individual posts, or even if you can)

From ASCA, an Italian news agency:

With Bertone’s nomination, following his encyclical on love, the Pope has signalled a new season in the Church of Rome, which can be difficult to grasp without recognizing the transition from Wojtyla to Ratzinger.

If by reason of age, Ratzinger could be considered a transitional choice on the part of the College of Cardinals, he is nevertheless adapting the Church to his new style through his sheer authoritativeness and ability to guide and provide new horizons.

The Pope has called on all the elements of the Church to rediscover the primacy of spirituality in order to make more credible its proclamation of the faith in an era that is marked not only by secularization but by globalization and a growing challenge (to the faith) from science and technology.

Benedict asks for a faith that is more aware and more linear, less compromised with political and economic powers or with business. Papa Ratzinger does not think of the Church’s relation to the world at large in terms of defying modernity, but by demonstrating with the example of life in the Church that love is the best way of evangelization, that love can even create a new syntehsis of faith and reason, and open a new season of dialog between believers and non-believers.

In this perspective, the sensibility of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and its priorites, are, in Benedict’s eyes, more important than a worldview that is simply political, or the support that pure diplomatic know-how alone could contribute to the government of the Church.

There are other articles which purport to analyze the inner workings of the Secretariat of State and imply considerable resistance to any Benedict-ine reforms, etc.

And from Il Giornale: (a conservative paper published out of Milan)

The community of believers, after John Paul II and more so with Benedict XVI, are rediscovering every day the exclusive and prior centrality of the faith.

It is like the procession at Corpus Domini, when even the Pope, leader of the Catholic world, is behind the Blessed Sacrament, not preceding it.

It is the sign of the times – seen in Marienfeld, Germany, then in Blonie, Poland. Open fields with millions of the faithful of all ages, on their knees and with hands clasped in prayer, before the Sacrament. It is a phenomenon that attracts the attention of and raises wonder even among non-believers.

As never before, pastoral activity is at the top of the hierarchy of messages within the Catholic Church. Something which does not please the church bureaucrats, and which could squash the decades-long attempt by ‘Catho-communist’ advocates to force an impossible coexistence between interests and strategies that are otherwise irreconcilable.

This is the sense in which we may read the nominations which will be made in the Curia to replace so many dicastery heads who have reached the age of retirement. The primacy of the Pastor over the politician-prelate is the characteristic of the era which we have just entered.

But the mass media do not seem to be prepared for the change at all. For months, efforts multiplied – although perhaps not all consciously so – to try and influence the decisions of the Pope from outside. But the Pope kept mum and has held back the long-awaited nominations up till now.

Serenity and determination, but also an awareness of one’s personal responsibility – these are the qualities that Benedict XVI has succeeded to instill meanwhile in those around him, whether within the Curia or outside it.

With the new Secretaruy of State, Cardinal Bertone, a Salesian and a longtime collaborator of Caridnal Ratzinger, things may finally proceed along the indicated way.

The media should learn to come to terms with a language that will necessarily be increasingly different from the language of secular politics.

For some it will be a great disappointment. A pity – since the situation offers new opportunities for that part of politics which is more concerned with human values and spiritual foundations, in which politics can go back to being a noble exercise in the service of the community.