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John Thavis

Pope Benedict’s Feb. 11 announcement that he would resign at the end of the month left him two and a half weeks to say goodbye to the church and the world, and to wrap up pending projects of his pontificate.

It’s been a little surprising, then, to see Benedict’s calendar fill up primarily with encounters with groups and individuals from a single country: Italy.

A meeting with the clergy of Rome. Individual “ad limina” audiences with bishops of Liguria. An encounter with an Italian charity organization. A private meeting with Italy’s outgoing prime minister, Mario Monti. Another round of “ad limina” meetings, this time with bishops of the Lombard region.

The pope’s last scheduled meeting with a major public figure will be his Feb. 23 encounter with Italian president Giorgio Napolitano.

The pope is reaching out to the broader world through his final general audiences and Sunday blessings. But these, too, tend to be predominantly Italian affairs conducted in the Italian language.

We all know the pope is bishop of Rome. But often it seems that his role today has turned into “pope of Italy.”

Vatican City, of course, is surrounded by Italy and there’s a natural crossover factor for any pope, Italian or not. Italian groups and leaders line up continually to see the pope, and they’re usually the ones who fill the basilica and square for papal liturgies.

But as the world’s cardinals prepare to elect Benedict’s successor, perhaps now is the time to re-examine Italy’s demands on a new pope’s time and energy — and its influence in the church’s universal mission.

As non-Italian popes, both John Paul II and Benedict went out of their way to reach out to Italians. In the eyes of many, in fact, Benedict effectively “re-Italianized” the Roman Curia by placing a large number of Italian prelates at or near the top of key Vatican agencies. He has also increased the Italian cardinal count, leaving 28 Italians as eligible voters in the upcoming conclave.

But in the age of globalization, does it really make sense to continue a single country’s domination of Vatican affairs? And is it really necessary, as is often argued here in Rome, that a “foreign” pope needs an Italian secretary of state to manage the Roman Curia?

In view of recent leaks, miscues and mistakes made at the highest level of the Curia — some of which involved murky Italian business affairs — one would hope the cardinals will take a fresh look at all this when they begin their meetings in Rome.

Last year, Nate Silver’s book, “The Signal and the Noise,” argued against over-emphasizing random fluctuations in forecasting outcomes like the U.S. presidential race.

Papal elections are not presidential elections, of course, but it’s clear that in the run-up to the March conclave we are hearing a lot of noise. It’s a very specific kind of noise — the chatter of what might be called “the conclave of the media.”

As papabili buzz on and off the nightly news and “contenders” lists pop up on Web sites, it’s good to remember that most of the voting cardinals have yet to arrive in Rome and few, if any, are talking names with reporters.

That creates a vacuum, and journalists have been happy to fill it.

Monday it was Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi who grabbed the media spotlight. Yesterday the outsider-turned-favorite was Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston. Today it’s Cardinal Luis Tagle’s turn as the candidate of the day, at least in Italian newspapers.

What the rest of the world needs to know is that little or none of this comes from the 117 cardinals who will be voting in the conclave. Many say they will wait to begin serious consideration of candidates until March, when the College of Cardinals begins daily meetings before being locked into the Sistine Chapel for the vote.

On Feb. 11, less than an hour after Pope Benedict’s surprise announcement that he would resign Feb. 28, an Italian journalist approached me and said: “Let’s make Cardinal O’Malley pope.” He made the remark with a wink and a smile, but I think he took it as a serious project. Since then, O’Malley’s name has percolated with regularity through the Vaticanista community.

Another Italian colleague told me last week that he had a couple of key appointments with Vatican cardinals — not to interview them, but to try and direct them to the proper candidate.

Italian journalists see themselves as players in a conclave, not just impartial bystanders. And some believe the press may have an impact in the papal selection process, at least in the period leading up to the voting. I remember that after the 2005 conclave, one cardinal remarked that he knew Cardinal Ratzinger was gaining consensus when he read it in the Italian newspapers.

The mountain of speculation that’s filled the papers and the airwaves in Italy since the pope’s resignation has included scenarios of intrigue, backstabbing and supposed alliances. That prompted Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, to say the other day that he hoped this would not become a “conclave of the media.” He was taking his cue from Pope Benedict, who the day before had contrasted the “real” Second Vatican Council with what he called the false “council of the media.”

So are there any “signals” out there amid the journalistic noise?

Here are a couple of recent statements by actual cardinals that seem to lay down markers:

— Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, one of few cardinals who can truly be considered a “popemaker” and the one who will announce the new pope to the world, had this interesting exchange yesterday with the French agency I.Media:

Q: Before his election, Joseph Ratinzger want to make (Curia) reform…

A: Yes, but the Curia is a huge machine. A younger pope is perhaps needed.

Q: What should be his age, in your opinion?

A: The ideal age would be more or less 65 — even 70 if he is in good form.

Q: What are the qualities he would need above all?

A: He would need to have above all the virtue of hope, because we find ourselves in a disillusioned world, a fluid society. He would also need to have clear ideas about the content of the faith.

— Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, who heads the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and is found on most papabili lists, told me last week that the church’s credibility is a key issue for the new pope, especially in the wake of financial scandals and leaks at the Vatican.

“Every time this pops up on Italian television, and you have a crook or Mafia member who has kept his money in the Vatican bank, that brings the Vatican down the drain, too. The Vatican has suffered from this kind of situation with business partners — unsuspectingly perhaps, it is difficult to tell. But certainly the damage it causes is lasting,” Cardinal Turkson said.

“We need to work on restoration of credibility. And I would put that probably on top of the list for the successor of the Benedict. It’s so important because now that we’re talking about new evangelization, and every pope has consistently talked about witnesses speaking louder than words. The burden is on us to be credible, to be sincere in everything we do.”

Pope Benedict is studying the possibility of issuing a document that would clarify certain issues being raised about the coming conclave, including the possibility of an early start to the papal election.

The Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said today that if the document is issued, it would come before the papal resignation takes effect Feb. 28. Lombardi said he thought the document might address certain ritual questions. He said he didn’t know if the pope would say anything about the starting date of the conclave, but the spokesman left the impression that the pope was aware of the timing issue.

The Vatican rules say that in preparing for a conclave, the cardinals “must wait fifteen full days for those who are absent.” Experts initially said that meant March 15 was the earliest possible starting date, given that the sede vacante begins Feb. 28. But others say the wording leaves open the possibility that the conclave could begin sooner, as long as all the cardinals were present or accounted for.

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