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Religion See other Religion Articles Title: Pope front-runner Pope front-runner Why Italian, 71, may get top job By HELEN KENNEDY DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Oddsmakers have Dionigi Cardinal Tettamanzi of Milan, a favorite of John Paul II, as favorite to succeed the late pontiff. Some say the charming moral theologian is campaigning too hard. Dionigi Cardinal Tettamanzi kisses the hand of Pope John Paul II. Dionigi Cardinal Tettamanzi of Milan is the odds-on favorite of every bookmaker taking wagers on the next Pope. He would just hate that. A moral theologian who looks like Pope John XXIII and thinks like Pope John Paul II, Tettamanzi has fulminated against gambling, which he says is immoral because it enslaves people. "Man is not made for games; games are made for man," he said. On the other hand, the popular cardinal might be pleased that he's in the lead at 3-to-1, given that one of the biggest knocks against him is that he's campaigning too hard for the job. Tettamanzi is little known abroad but ubiquitous in Milan, where he appears on TV, writes newspaper articles and publishes opinions about everything from gay marriage to bioethics to the wiles of Satan. Avuncular and charming, Tettamanzi has been able to bridge political chasms within the Vatican without making important enemies. He is popular with both conservatives and progressives. At 71, he's old enough to make another 26-year papacy unlikely. He's the leading Italian in a year when many foresee the job returning to Italian hands. And most importantly, he was a favorite of John Paul, is believed to have ghostwritten some of his encyclicals and would represent a smooth continuation of the late Pope's policies. Tettamanzi is short and round and jokes about it. He didn't take offense when a Scottish cardinal famously suggested in 1999 that he wasn't dignified enough to be Pope by saying, "Who's the wee fat guy?" He bears a resemblance to the widely beloved Pope John XXIII and has a similar populist style: He loves to wade into crowds to shake hands. In 2003 he visited the Formula One race track at Monza, chatted with the drivers, mechanics and fans and even took a few zippy turns around the track in driver Ivan Capelli's red Mercedes. He joked afterward that he has been known to go even faster on a regular road. He recently published a chatty letter to children with references to Bill Gates, Italian pop stars and the rainbow peace flags hanging from so many apartment balconies. He signed it "Dionigi." The Italian magazine L'espresso dubbed his activities "Tettamanzi's frantic campaign for the papacy." Born near Milan, Tettamanzi wanted to be a priest since he was 5 and entered the seminary at 11. He spent much of his career as a seminary rector before becoming an archbishop in 1989 and then secretary of the bishops conference in Rome two years later. He became a favorite of John Paul and in 2002, when he received an unusual promotion from archbishop of Genoa to Milan - Italy's largest diocese - some saw it as the subtle anointing of a successor. Politically, Tettamanzi is hard to characterize. Like John Paul, he is very conservative about church doctrine - taking strong positions against homosexuality, stem cell research and abortion - but liberal when it comes to issues of social justice. Some Vatican watchers contend he's a lock because of his courting of the politically powerful Opus Dei. Like all but one of the voting cardinals, Tettamanzi is not a member of the secretive archtraditionalist group, but he has allied himself with them. He once compared Opus Dei founder José Maria Escriva to St. Francis of Assisi and has published fundamentalist papers such as one warning that the devil is real - "very intelligent, astute and charming" - and walking the Earth. Tettamanzi listed 10 practical ways to resist Satan and, in an echo of the famous "usual suspects" movie line, wrote: "He is a liar, and his greatest lie is that he does not exist." Tettamanzi has also been at the forefront of the church's opposition to what he called "gay culture" - especially same-sex unions. "In this cultural situation the church must exercise the greatest vigilance," he wrote. But Tettamanzi is also popular with the liberal lay Community of St. Egidio, and other Vatican observers say Opus Dei has cooled on Tettamanzi because of it. As archbishop of Genoa in 2001, Tettamanzi backed the anti-globalization protesters who laid siege to the G8 summit of world leaders there. "One African child sick with AIDS counts more than the entire universe," he said, urging rich countries to take more care of the Third World. In Milan, the cardinal has been outspoken about social problems including unemployment, poverty and the treatment of illegal immigrants. He called for "placing in common the welfare and the goods of all, material and immaterial, physical and spiritual" - prompting a blistering editorial last year from the newspaper Il Foglio blasting "the Communism of Tettamanzi." Tettamanzi both embraces modernity and worries about it. Though Microsoft published digital editions of his 2000 book on bioethics, he is strongly critical of 21st century Western culture as being too materialistic. "We seek to satisfy ourselves with consumer goods. We pursue economic well-being as the lone guarantee of true quality of life," he said. "We try to build a paradise on Earth, because we no longer believe in paradise in Heaven." When it comes to the reforms so many American and European Catholics are pushing for, Tettamanzi is unlikely to deliver if elected. Like John Paul, he sees the church's problems as external, not internal. In his view, pressure to ordain women or let priests marry is due to a crisis of faith among Catholic worshipers, not a structural problem in the church or a failure to adapt to modernity. "The first and fundamental problem concerns us Christians and our faith: To what point are we Christians?" he has said. "In Europe today, the priority does not lie in 'baptizing the converted' but in 'converting the baptized.'" If he becomes Pope, he'll be the rare one with a nudgy mom. In 2002, Giuditta Tettamanzi, now 94, was asked if she was pleased her son was moving to Milan and therefore could visit her more. "I have no demands. When he calls me and asks me how I am, I simply answer: Alleluia!" she said. "My son must do the will of God, not mine." She said she had one mantra when her son was made a priest and then a cardinal: "I repeated to him: Only with humility will you be able to take souls to God."
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Looks like we'll be getting to the end of the world a whole lot sooner. I mean, here we have a new potential pontiff whose already 71. AND... He's got an OLIVE complexion, as well as ITALIAN. What do you want to bet, this guy becomes pope, and buys it a short time later? Come on Armageddon, hurry up and get here.
Government enslaves people. Gambling just takes their money.
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