{"id":3509,"date":"2012-10-01T09:15:17","date_gmt":"2012-10-01T09:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimdev8.com\/?p=3509"},"modified":"2012-10-01T09:15:17","modified_gmt":"2012-10-01T09:15:17","slug":"german-elements-in-the-popes-vacation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insidethevatican.com\/magazine\/culture\/german-elements-in-the-popes-vacation\/","title":{"rendered":"German Elements in the Pope\u2019s Vacation"},"content":{"rendered":"
When summer comes, the rhythm of work at the Holy See slows and the Pope\u2019s agenda is less intense. This year, for the third time, Benedict XVI decided to spend Rome\u2019s hottest months \u2014 July, August and September \u2014 at his residence in Castel Gandolfo, not in the northern Italian Alps. At the beginning of his pontificate, like his predecessor, John Paul II, he used to accept invitations to go to the north of Italy, to the mountains, on his vacation. But after he fell and fractured his right wrist in 2009, the German Pope decided to stay close to the Vatican (Castel Gandolfo is around 20 miles from Rome) to concentrate on writing. (Indeed, thanks to that unfortunate accident, he could not finish the second part of Jesus of Nazareth<\/em> which was finally published a year later than planned. This summer, the Pope finished his trilogy, with the final volume dedicated to the stories of Jesus\u2019 infancy. Now the book is being translated from the original German contemporaneously into seven most-spoken languages, including English.)<\/p>\n Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the secretary of state, did vacation in northern Italy, telling journalists in Introd, a village in the foothills of the Alps where he was spending his vacation, that the Holy Father was \u201cperhaps\u201dworking on a new encyclical. That information has not been officially confirmed by the Holy See\u2019s press office.<\/p>\n The Pope spent his vacation in almost monastic style during July, with few public events \u2014 the Sunday Angelus, a concert and a Mass in Frascati. That changed in August, when the Pope was back to his more regular rhythm, though still less intensive than in the Vatican.<\/p>\n In that period, there were some familiar German accents in Castel Gandolfo. As every year, the Pope\u2019s brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, came to visit him and passed several weeks with him.<\/p>\n The first event was a \u201cBavarian evening\u201d with traditional music offered by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and Freising, for Benedict\u2019s 85th birthday, first celebrated on April 16 in the Vatican, but celebrated again this summer. A special train left Landshurt, Germany, on August 1. On August 3, for one evening, Castel Gandolfo became a little piece of Bavaria, with the Pope\u2019s fellow countrymen filling the little town square dressed in traditional clothes: dirndl<\/em> for women and shorts and socks for men. Somehow that was a \u201cticket\u201d to enter the courtyard of Castel Gandolfo Palace. Some 450 members of the old Bayerischen Gebirgssch\u00fctzen<\/em> (mountain troop of Bavaria) saluted the Pope from the gate, observed from his window by the Pope\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n