Word: pontiff
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...pilgrims came from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. The annual influx of visitors, which has grown by nearly 40% since 1966, has transformed Lourdes (pop. 18,096) into one of the busiest tourist spots in France. Only Paris and Nice have more hotel rooms. As the first reigning Pontiff to visit Lourdes, John Paul was also affixing a sort of Vatican seal of approval to a Catholic shrine that is controversial as well as popular...
...California-based sect called the Christian Church of the Word, he appointed two church elders as his principal advisers. He could also be petty: when Pope John Paul II toured the country last March, Rios Montt refused to provide government funds for a specially built car for the Pontiff...
...visit to Poland seemed a bold gamble. The government of General Wojciech Jaruzelski had made no secret of the fact that it viewed the papal pilgrimage as a way to rehabilitate Poland in the eyes of the world. But if the authorities thought they could manipulate the Polish-born Pontiff, they were mistaken. John Paul was determined to speak his mind and his heart, however uncomfortable he made his secular hosts. As the Pope moved across Poland, he showed by word and gesture that he understood the meaning of the euphoric parenthesis of freedom that Poles had known...
...Paul's visit, Poland's military leaders would have to decide whether to jolt the country with another crackdown or take advantage of the good will generated by the Pope. To salvage his reputation in Moscow and among hard-liners at home, Jaruzelski needed to counter the Pontiff's bold words with stern action. To win Western support for Poland's listing economy, he would have to go even further in reaching out to the church and society. Jaruzelski could, of course, also choose to do nothing, as if the Pope had never come...
Following the Mass over loudspeakers, hundreds of thousands of people lined the flower-strewn streets. Some balanced precariously on bridge railings in hope of catching just a glimpse of the waving Pontiff as he sped by in his Popemobile. If John Paul could not visit the Poznan memorial, a crowd of several hundred people managed to avoid police blockades and rally by the twin crosses. A lonely yellow-and-white papal banner was left behind in the empty torch of an eternal flame that was extinguished soon after the military crackdown in December...