Word: masses
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...many ways, Biden is in a better position to deal with criticisms of his Catholicism than Kerry ever was. The 2004 Democratic nominee was utterly unprepared for the attacks that came his way. He had to contend with a press corps that trailed him to mass each Sunday and practically accompanied him to the communion rail to see if he would indeed be given the Eucharist. And when Kerry's campaign decided to remain silent about the issue, he left unchallenged the idea that he was a bad or insincere Catholic...
...Unfortunately, in a country where two-thirds of the electorate is overweight, it seems unlikely that it will ever be seriously considered. But such is the tragedy of mass politics...
...Alive, perhaps, but just hanging on. Though some 75 % of French citizens are baptized, regular mass attendance is edging below 10%. Even Church weddings have dropped, from 147,000 in 1990 to 89,000 in 2006. Indeed, the most notable new religious energy in the country is increasingly coming from a growing Muslim community...
...Even those Catholics who do follow their faith have little hope that Benedict's four-day visit - which will include a mass in central Paris and a visit to the southwest pilgrimage town of Lourdes - can make a real difference. "It will create a buzz, but I don't think it will create a very deep feeling of religion," said Guillaume de Galard, 32, exiting mass on a recent Sunday in downtown Paris. "It will only exist for his time he's here...
...stir Europeans with his ideas, there is also the work to be done on the ground. Georges Kouakou, 50, remembers the Western missionaries when he was growing up poor in his native Ivory Coast. Having emigrated to France, Kouakou, a computer engineer and father of three, regularly attends mass at Notre Dame des Victoires church in central Paris. The pastor to the mostly native French parishioners there happens to be from the Congo. "There's been an evolution," Kouakou says. "Europeans went to evangelize Africans; today it's the reverse, and Africans are now evangelizing. These are the seeds that...