Sandri the pope's new 'voice'
2005-02-27 17:50
Vatican City - Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, who performed the blessing in Pope John Paul II's name at the Sunday Angelus in St Peter's Square, has assumed the role of the "voice" of the increasingly silent pope in the twilight of his pontificate.
The 61-year-old Sandri was chosen to give the blessing as the pontiff missed giving the blessing for the first time since being elected pope in 1978.
Over the past two years, Sandri has stepped in to complete passages of the pope's speeches and homilies when the increasingly enfeebled pope struggled with his breathing and diction, a result of his Parkinson's disease.
In doing so, the archbishop has enjoyed greater access to the 84-year-old pontiff - and his private secretary Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz - than many Vatican cardinals.
Sandri, described as likeable and reserved by Vatican insiders, a diplomatic style honed over years as a Vatican representative in Africa, the United States and Central America.
Sandri has been at the Vatican since September 2000, when he was named as deputy secretary of state under the Vatican's number two, Sodano.
As Sodano's deputy, Sandri is effectively the Vatican's "interior minister".
Like the pope, he is something of a polyglot, and speaks English, French, German, Spanish and of course, Italian.
Vatican sources say he is likely to become a cardinal at the next consistory at the Vatican.