At 69 that's pretty close to half of his life, and since it's the early half there is more weight to it as it forms the context from which the rest is understood.
What? Speaking from experience, the country you go to after 20s is the one you choose, not the one you were forced to live in. This has a huge factor in your thinking more than the number of years on paper.
On the nature/nature aspect people are already predominantly nature. For the nurture component of the residual the early years are very formative. As an expat who has spent much more of my life outside my country of birth than in it, and knows many other expats who have done the same, from my observation our upbringing still dominates our behavior. It is also a selection criteria bias where expats are more likely to identify with other expats even when not from the same country or residing in the same country which is one of the reasons expats tend to form communities with other expats. The problem with self assessing behavior is that the same biases which determine behavior is used for assessing the behavior where much of what is considered merely normal is ignored leading to over-weighting the size of the unusual component.
Sure, but the fact that he stayed there for many many years means that it suited him. If you want the change countries the Church has processes for that.
Well, I don't know if it would be fair to compare him to your typical midwest American boomer who's been living in the suburbs since they were 27 and shows up in the middle of the day to protest against apartments going up in their neighborhood.
Wait till you see how long Cardinal Pizzaballa who was viewed as the most likely Italian contender for the Papacy, has spent in the Holy Land and not Italy.
I get the joke but it goes the other way around. Martini is a common family name from the north of Italy (Carmelo is common given name in the south). The drink was named after the name of company producing it (actually half of it.) The company was named Martini because that was the family name of the founder.