What Kind of Pope Will He Be?

The air-conditioned Vatican auditorium is warm with anticipation of the main attraction. Whisked into Rome last Wednesday from the nearby papal summer residence at Castel Gondolfo, the white-haired man enters from a side door to press the flesh of the lucky faithful with seats in the chosen corner. Over the past quarter-century, Catholics became accustomed to celebrating with gusto these regular Wednesday General Audiences with the Holy Father. And people have really turned out this time for Pope Benedict XVI: Slovenians in traditional country dress, Sombrero-sporting Mexicans, French girl scouts and flag-waving Brazilians all add to the noise. Once up on the stage, the Pope waves his two-handed wave, sits down and methodically unfolds a handkerchief to wipe his brow. This is not, however, the sweat of stage fright. With three months' practice, the new pontiff no longer steps on applause lines. His remarks in six languages are energetic and he kindly salutes the small parish groups that launch into impromptu hymns. He even knows he can stir up the Spanish-speaking crowd with a humble "muchas gracias."

Still, when it's time to chant the concluding Paternoster, Benedict's expression remains more stoic than rapturous. And exactly one hour after arriving, he scoots off the stage with his short but decisive steps. It's time to return to the cooler air of Castel Gandolfo to ... do what? Write a first, tone-setting encyclical? Devise a game plan for healing the 1,000-year rift with the Eastern Orthodox churches? Reorganize the Vatican bureaucracy? People wonder.

Much as they have wondered since Benedict was chosen in April. A papacy is not a presidency, with every day's progress tallied obsessively during the march through a limited term. Yet scholars had hoped by now for a sense of how Benedict's new station would affect his theology, and whether his avid pursuit of heretics as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith meant that heads would roll. When would the new Pope tear into the ecclesiastic "filth" inside his church and the "dictatorship of relativism" outside it that he had diagnosed preconclave? Benedict's first 100 days as Pope have passed, but he's offered no definitive answers, just occasional modest indicators — plus a frank give-and-take with local priests while holidaying at Les Combes in the Italian Alps on Day 98 — that showed a progress of the man into the office and suggested that those who predicted a "caretaker" papacy may have spoken too soon. An inside look at seven telling days of the new Pope's stewardship:

Day 5 Tailoring Himself To The New Job
In a gesture probably intended tomollify a press that had been portraying him as an unrelenting hard-liner, the newly chosen Benedict invited journalists as guests to his first public appearance on April 23 in the Vatican's Paolo VI auditorium — the same location as last week's general audience. But back in April he was ill at ease, and the ever vigilant Italian scribes noted that the hemline of his robes was cut far too high, offering an unusually revealing look at his ruby papal slippers. It was the kind of gaffe John Paul II, as a former actor, would have been unlikely to commit.

A day later the hem had fallen. And over time Benedict found his office's public aspect an increasingly comfortable fit. His smile offset the famous dark circles beneath his eyes. Eventually he was tolerating such photo ops as a public cell-phone conversation with an ailing nun and the donning of a fire fighter's hat. "He'll never be a celebrity," says a Vatican official who worked closely with Benedict before he became Pope. "But he seems more joyful and sure of himself." Ratzinger's brother was once worried that the job might harm his health. On the contrary, asserts Walter Cardinal Kasper, a fellow German, "he is reinvigorated" by it.

Day 25 Charting His Course While Honoring The Past
In a bravura balancing act, on may 13 Benedict simultaneously fast-tracked John Paul for sainthood and appointed San Francisco Archbishop William Levada as his own replacement to head the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, guardian of church orthodoxy. The first announcement may run counter to Benedict's natural inclinations: he appears to frown on mass-market saintmaking (he has said he will not attend beatifications, which are a step before canonization). However, he clearly regards John Paul as a special case for sainthood and not just because of his own admiration for the man. In the days before his election, the then Cardinal not only heard the cries of "Santo Giovanni Paolo" ringing over St. Peter's Square but also reportedly saw a petition by a substantial number of his peers asking that John Paul's "cause" proceed without the usual five-year wait. Thus Vatican watchers regard the exemption — which Benedict announced personally, in Latin, to roars of approval from a group of seminarians — as not simply a bow to overwhelming lay sentiment but also a kind of political nod to the Cardinals in the name of their collective mentor.

That nicely offset the independence Benedict signaled by choosing Levada. "Everybody," says a powerful Rome-based Cardinal, "was expecting a European" for the key slot. Rome was certainly not anticipating a relatively obscure Archbishop from the scandal-plagued U.S. church. By tapping Levada, a personal acquaintance with a reputation as a practical if unspectacular thinker, Benedict may or may not have been arranging to act as the de facto head of his old shop. But he certainly showed a willingness to go his own way.

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