Word: nun
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...example, he stopped by the rambling brick convent in Mankato, Minnesota, which serves as the headquarters for one of the order's seven U.S. provinces. "You've got to be good friends before you ask somebody for their brain," he jokes as he arrives, giving an elderly nun a big grin and a hug. At certain times, Snowdon says, he feels as if he never left parochial school. One such moment occurred when a nun recently suggested that he ought to think about trimming his shoulder-length hair...
Snowdon launched the Nun Study in 1986 as a way to take a broad look at the physical and psychological aspects of aging. But in 1990 he decided to narrow the focus to Alzheimer's. That's when he approached the order's U.S. leaders with a sensitive question. Would the nuns be willing to do more than take psychological tests and give blood samples? he wondered. Would they be willing to donate their brains? Like a politician campaigning for votes, Snowdon traveled from one convent to the next, making his pitch. In Baltimore, Maryland, he remembers, Sister Mary...
Raised a devout Roman Catholic in Quang Ngai, Vietnam, she left home at 22 to study in England, eventually becoming an interpreter for the Red Cross. At 30, she met and married a German doctor but left him, amicably she says, to become a Buddhist nun and pursue enlightenment in India. Her recognition as a spiritual leader came rather suddenly in 1982 when she tried to buy a copy of the Hindu sacred work the Bhagavad-Gita that she says she saw in a shop along the Ganges. The shopkeepers said there were none in stock; she insisted...
...schedule and most of the Pontiff's writings, translated into six languages. It will also have the capacity to field thousands of simultaneous information requests from all over the world. "The Internet is exploding, and the church has got to be there," says Sister Judith Zoebelein, the American-born nun who runs the site. "The Holy Father wanted it." Indeed, the Pope, who has always looked for innovative ways to spread the word, including travel, books and even records, was writing as early as 1989 about the opportunities offered by computer telecommunications to fulfill the church's mission, which...
When the conversation does lock onto a subject, there can be fireworks. In the series' best segment, "Apocalypse," about the Flood, British author (and former nun) Karen Armstrong conducts a blistering twin attack. God, she maintains, is "not some nice, cozy daddy in the sky." He is "behaving in an evil way," effectively introducing mankind to the idea of justifiable genocide. Noah, meanwhile, is a "damaged survivor" who says no word about those drowning around him, much less tries to help them. Drinking his troubles away after reaching shore, he is enraged at being seen naked...