Word: papal
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Normally the Pope gives neither interviews nor press conferences, but during the long flights on the papal plane, John Paul usually takes time not only to greet reporters but to listen carefully to their questions and provide remarkably direct and thoroughgoing answers. "During our 1979 flight to Mexico," Wynn recalls, "John Paul told me that he planned to visit the U.S., the first time this had been revealed. On subsequent trips, he gave me meaty answers about keeping priests out of politics and on his plans to visit Poland in 1983 in spite of the country's state of martial...
Wynn has been able to supplement such papal encounters with background information from an array of well-placed Vatican sources. "There is one advantage to getting older," says Wynn. "If you hang around long enough, your lower-echelon contacts eventually move up to positions of eminence." Says Associate Editor Richard Ostling, TIME's Religion writer since 1975 and the author of this week's cover story on the state of the church: "Wilton Wynn is one of the finest reporters of this generation, and a key part of TIME's Vatican coverage." Ostling is not alone in that view. During...
Besides his Vatican appointments, of course, the Pope names all new bishops, and, says one of the leading figures among the U.S. bishops, "He's trying to change the makeup of the hierarchies so he will have more control." Some liberals question whether papal authority can be so easily imposed. Father Greeley points out that U.S. Catholics no longer constitute an immigrant culture, and are far more likely to attend college than are Americans as a whole. Says he: "The American hierarchy and the Vatican simply haven't realized that we have a well-educated population out there whom...
...going to be inventing new teaching in this document, but reflecting what's already there in the Second Vatican Council, and in the papal encyclicals, particularly of Pope John Paul II," said Law of the bishops' work...
Pope John Paul II's position on abortion is firm and uncompromising: it is morally wrong and equivalent to infanticide. That papal teaching, along with its corollary that Roman Catholics should actively seek to overturn legislation that allows the taking of prenatal life, has put the Vatican in a confrontation with 24 American nuns that could lead to their expulsion from religious life. The nuns are among 97 Catholics, including three men who belong to religious orders, who signed "A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and + Abortion," an advertisement published in the New York Times last October...