Word: pontiff
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...described as a "purely pastoral" visit. But as Pope John Paul IPs eight-day trip to Central America and Haiti drew to a close last week, the dividing line between religion and politics seemed to have all but disappeared. On none of his previous 16 foreign voyages had the Pontiff so consistently called for social justice, and seldom have his words and gestures been so carefully watched. Said a Vatican official traveling with the Pope: "Even when he says Mass it seems to have political implications...
...that he was no friend of anti-Communists who violate human rights. During a private meeting at Guatemala's National Palace, he chastised the President, General Efrain Rios Montt, for executing six men, who had been convicted of subversive activity, on the eve of the papal visit. The Pontiff saved some of his strongest criticism of injustice for a Mass attended by President-for-Life Jean-Claude Duvalier in Haiti...
...immediately upon his arrival at Managua's Augusto Cesar Sandino Airport, the Pope was plunged into national politics. While the sunburned Pontiff stood in the blazing heat for an airport welcoming ceremony, Sandinista junta Coordinator Daniel Ortega Saavedra delivered a 25-minute greeting, in which he blasted U.S. foreign policy and warned that "the footsteps of interventionist boots echo threateningly in the White House and the Pentagon." He told the Pope that the Nicaraguan people were "martyred and crucified every day, and we demand solidarity with right on our side." Ortega also went out of his way to tell...
...nonaligned nations in New Delhi, when the Pope arrived. But Minister of Culture Ernesto Cardenal Martinez, a priest, was in the official receiving line along with other government ministers. He was wearing his typical rustic white cotton shirt, baggy blue work pants and a black beret. As the Pontiff approached, Cardenal whipped off his beret and dropped to his knees to kiss the papal ring. But the Pope appeared to withhold his hand. Wagging his finger at Cardenal, John Paul gave him a public scolding that television cameras carried around the world. The Pope told Cardenal: "You must straighten...
...Bulgaria's Balkan Airlines office in Rome, and two embassy officials plotted the shooting of the Pope in May, Agca reportedly told investigating Judge Ilario Martella, they had also plotted the murder of Walesa when he journeyed to Rome four months earlier for his meeting with the Pontiff. Agca said an Italian union official was involved in the plan. That man, Judge Martella reasoned, may have been Luigi Scricciolo, an Italian labor union official who had helped plan Walesa's trip to Italy. In a separate investigation, Scricciolo has been charged with espionage and with acting...