Word: pontiff
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Would the KGB have called on the Bulgarian security service to stage just such an operation in St. Peter's Square on May 13, 1981? The Kremlin certainly had a motive for wanting Pope John Paul II out of the way. Since his election in 1978, the Pontiff has shown particular concern for the plight of Communist bloc Catholics, and also set about improving ties with Eastern Orthodox churches in the region. Moscow has long been suspicious of any such religious activity, fearing that it might stir up nationalist sentiments, especially in the Baltic republics and the Western Ukraine...
...Pope was a little more direct in his remarks, blasting the Mafioso by name as "operators of aberrant manifestations of criminality." Hardly an all-out frontal assault, but then this pontiff has never been one for drastic action, Rather, he concluded with a hopeful vision of the future. "Delightful Palermo open haven, secure haven, live in serenity and peace...
Even for a country as staunchly Catholic as Spain, the welcome for Pope John Paul II last week was astonishing in its emotional intensity. Beyond the outpouring of affection for the man himself, it was as if Spaniards saw this first visit to their country ever by a sitting Pontiff as a symbol of reconciliation for a young democracy racked by leftist terrorism on the one hand and threatened on the other by disgruntled right-wingers anxious to return to the dictatorial days of Francisco Franco. Only three days before the Pope's white Alitalia 727 touched down...
...Mass in Madrid's Plaza de Lima before more than a million cheering spectators, one of the largest crowds he has drawn in any of his 16 trips abroad. Standing beneath a 30-ft.-high cross on a podium draped in white and yellow papal bunting, the Pontiff put forward in exceptionally strong terms his conservative position on marriage and the family. The Socialists have proposed legalizing abortion in cases where the mother's life is endangered or the fetus appears abnormal. Said John Paul II: "The murder of an innocent never can be legitimized." Turning...
...Roman Catholic pontiff said his meeting with Felipe Gonzalez, whose Specialist Party wan last week's general election by a landslide, should "remove any doubts--if chief ever were any--about my respect for the country's freely elected leaders...