Word: altars
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Bells pealed all across the congested city of Rio as John Paul's "Popemobile" arrived. At a jammed open-air Mass in sight of Sugar Loaf Mountain, the Pope made his way to the altar, hugging and kissing babies. Two days later, in São Paulo, the fervor of an open-air throng of 1.5 million brought tears to John Paul's eyes...
...special occasions. U.S. bishops want to permit the practice on Sundays, but the Vatican says no. Many American parishes have begun to use wine more regularly, following Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches, which use both bread and wine on all occasions. American Catholics have also taken to using "altar girls" as well as boys to help with the service, though that practice has always been officially against the rules too. Said a disgruntled Washington, D.C., priest: "We do all of these things, and we're going to keep on doing them so long as they encourage people to worship...
Catholics in Zaïre are also "Africanizing" the liturgy in ways marked by high church attendance and great zeal. At a typical Mass the young priest dons a zebra's mane headdress while assistants, men and women alike, clap and shuffle around the altar to the throbbing of drums and an occasional shrill scream of religious ecstasy. The congregation swings, sings lustily and sways with the rhythms. "The Latin rite is too impersonal for Africans," the priest explains. "The Zaïreans' Mass comes from the heart." Clergy were chilled a bit when John Paul insisted...
...many eulogies last week, the brutal murder at the altar was even compared with that of Thomas a Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury who was murdered by courtiers of King Henry II in the 12th century. "Barbaric!" exclaimed Pope John Paul II in Rome. "It is not only his archdiocese but the whole church which suffers from such iniquitous violence...
...Catholic Church. Reformation is in the air at the Sorbonne; the student undergoes a profound conversion. His new Protestantism is anathema to both church and state and he flees to Switzerland. In Geneva, Calvin becomes the voice of a new moral order; in one dispute he walks off the altar at Easter and is expelled from the city. Moving to Strasbourg, he ministers to French Protestant refugees, is married and waits for a summons back to Geneva...