Word: pontiff
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...accompany Jean Cardinal Villot, the church's Camerlengo or chamberlain, to the flustered Luciani, who was still seated in his place under a fresco of the baptism of Christ. The Camerlengo, his face wreathed in smiles, asked the ritual question: "Do you accept your canonical election as Supreme Pontiff?" Luciani at first replied, "May God forgive you for what you have done in my regard." Then he gave his assent, "Accepto," and announced the name he had chosen for himself as the new Pope: loannes Paulus. The choice immediately stirred pleased comments among the Cardinals...
...number of Cardinals were so exuberant at the election of the new Pontiff that they rushed up to the stove themselves and stuffed in their personal notes and tally sheets, igniting the paper with black flares. A white signal had already gone up, but now the Cardinalitial enthusiasm caused the chimney to belch bursts of black and gray smoke, keeping the crowd in St. Peter's Square guessing for the hour it took for John Paul to make his first appearance...
Unlike his recent predecessors, the new Pontiff has never been a Vatican diplomat, has no experience in the labyrinthine ways of the Roman Curia, and has spent most of his life in the region of northeastern Italy where he was born (he never left Italy before last year, when he visited Brazil). But he is precisely what so many Cardinals said they were looking for: a pastor who shepherds his flock with concern, compassion and a profound sense of the spiritual...
...same time, he is a complex man with an inquisitive mind. John Cardinal Wright, American head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy, predicted that Pope John Paul would be "a witty Pontiff who delights in combining love of literature with love of the words of God." Luciani, said Carlo Confalonieri, the 85-year-old dean of the College of Cardinals, is "a bishop who reflects a lot, writes well and speaks well. The church has chosen well...
...Pontiff grew up in an atmosphere that demanded more practical diplomacy than most Popes have had to practice in embassies around the world: his father was a committed socialist, his mother, as he put it, "a strong and devout" Catholic. Luciani was born, on Oct. 17, 1912, into the working class. In his home town of Forno di Canale in the Dolomite Alps of northeastern Italy, says the parish priest, "the villagers have been forced to work abroad. [Luciani's] father went to Switzer land to make a living." Even tually, the elder Luciani was able to settle down...