Word: benedicts
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When Pope Benedict XVI travels to Turkey this week, most of the world's attention will be focused on the Christian-Muslim religious divide. But the pontiff is also crossing a political fault line: The gulf between Europe and the Near East has been much in the news lately because of Turkey's troubled attempts to join the European Union. Ankara is keen to become a full member, but Europeans are having second thoughts. Skeptics, including the Pope himself, are openly questioning whether a mostly Muslim nation of 70 million can ever really be part of Europe...
...they make pilgrimages. Pope John Paul II turned these spiritual journeys into worldwide media events, from his first return to his Polish homeland to the masses he conducted before millions in the Philippines and his Millennial-year arrival in the Holy Land. Though lacking some of the same flair, Benedict XVI's first four outings beyond Italian soil have largely followed similar pilgrimesque itineraries: warming up to a million young Catholics at World Youth Day in Cologne, paying homage to his predecessor in Poland, trying to turn back a wave of Spanish secularism in Valencia, and returning two months...
...Benedict's critics may be no fewer, but his lifetime appointment to be supreme pontiff helps shield him from the potential schisms facing Williams. While the 79-year-old pontiff has said he wants to give greater voice to bishops, his Church can count on the stability that comes in having one man with the authority to resolve any internal dispute. Democracy-in-Catholicism advocates, however, argue, that the Pope's absolute authority does not allow for truly honest and open debate of evolving issues facing the Church. Another downside - as was on display in Regensburg, Germany with Benedict...
...have in common. Both these reknowned theologians are concerned about deepening secularism in the West and encroaching fundamentalist challenge from Islam. Williams delivered a lecture Thursday evening at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences which raised the issue of religious freedom for minorities in Muslim countries. Many wonder if Benedict will confront the same topic in his much anticipated trip to Turkey next week...
...Both Anglican and Catholic officials noted a particular warm rapport between Benedict and Williams during a Thursday morning meeting and subsequent lunch at the papal apartment. The two leaders issued a joint statement acknowledging "serious obstacles" to closer communion between the Churches - a clear reference to the Anglican openness to gays and women in the clergy. Williams, who was accompanied by his wife and two children, timed his trip to mark the 40th anniversary of a historic meeting between Archbishop Michael Ramsey and Pope Paul VI. On that first formal encounter between the heads of the two Churches since England...