Word: pontiff
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Charges of murder most foul On the evening of Sept. 28, 1978, Pope John Paul I said prayers in his private chapel in the Apostolic Palace, then retired to his bedroom a few yards away. It would be his last night alive: next morning, the Pontiff was found dead in his bed. The official cause of death was a heart attack. What made John Paul's demise especially poignant was that he had been elected Pope only 33 days earlier...
Clad in simple white albs, 77 candidates for the priesthood prostrated themselves before the high altar of St. Peter's Basilica last week as the Supreme Pontiff invoked the blessings of the saints in heaven. Then, while the group knelt in four neat rows, Pope John Paul, followed by Monsignor Alvaro del Portillo, laid hands on the candidates' heads to convey to them the powers of priesthood...
After the tight security that surrounded John Paul's visit to South Korea, the Pope seemed to revel in the enthusiastic reception that greeted him in Port Mores by, the capital of Papua New Guinea. The Pontiff won many hearts when, at a Mass, he said the Lord's Prayer in pidgin English, the most common local patois. "Papa bilong mipela, yu stap long heven . . ." At the local sports field he watched benignly as bare-breasted women in grass skirts chanted hymns and drummers sporting feathered headdresses pounded out an accompaniment on hollow logs covered with animal skins...
Warring tribesmen had called a tem porary truce in honor of the Pontiff's visit. At Mount Hagen, from an altar covered with a thatched roof and lavishly decorated with hibiscus, orchids, bougainvillea and battle shields, the Pope made a plea for permanent peace to the crowd of almost 130,000. Then he gave Communion to warriors who glistened with pig fat and wore head dresses of black hawk feathers and crimson and golden plumes from the bird of paradise...
...Pontiff traveled next to Thailand, where he was welcomed by King Bhumibol Adulyadej in Bangkok's Grand Palace. Catholics make up less than 1% of Thailand's 52 million people. In an unusual ecumenical gesture, John Paul paid a 17-minute call on the Buddhist Supreme Patriarch...