Word: faithfully
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Minister and the only curial official with instant access to John Paul. But there are other Cardinals the Pope confers with regularly. Every Friday evening, the Pontiff meets with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 67, the austere German theologian whose title is prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (once known as the Holy Office). "Ratzinger is a theologian and John Paul is a philosopher, but they basically see eye to eye," says a veteran Vaticanologist. The two became friends at the Second Vatican Council, when both were young bishops. On Saturday evenings, the Pope has another standing appointment...
...Indeed, the Pope may be advised, but to the private dismay of many bishops, any decision on issues discussed will be made by the Pope, and the Pope alone. As John Paul once told TIME's Wilton Wynn: "It is a mistake to apply American democratic procedures to the faith and the truth. You cannot take a vote on the truth. You must not confuse the sensus fidei ((sense of the faith)) with 'consensus...
Within the parish, the bitterest battles are usually fought within the hearts of individual parishioners trying to square their own faith with the dictates of Rome. For Bruce Schermerhorn, 47, the struggle escalated when he got divorced in 1976. Remarried by a judge in 1985, he attended Mass regularly without taking Communion. "I've always had an adversarial relationship with the church," he says. Last year, after joining a weekly men's prayer group, he finally decided to take Communion. "Well, I wasn't struck down by a bolt & of lightning and the ceiling didn't open up," he says...
Kenneally counsels parishioners to follow their faith in such decisions. Some issues are less controversial. "Nobody ever asks me about birth control," he says. "It's just taken for granted that you do what you've got to do for birth control...
...church already is changing, whether Rome likes it or not. "We are the church," says Mary Anne Barry, 71, whose faith remains unshaken by her strong differences with the Vatican. "I'm really not an admirer of John Paul II," she says. "He still thinks that sexual sins -- I call those pelvic sins -- are the big going-to-hell sins, and I don't believe that." Mike Tobin, a deeply committed Catholic who helped organize the gym Mass, says, "Rome is very irrelevant to me. I'm thankful the Pope helped shut down communism, but in many ways I disagree...