Word: pontiff
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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There is neither appeal nor recourse against a decision or decree of the Roman Pontiff...
...sooner had cheering crowds welcomed Pope John Paul II to tiny Lesotho (pop. 1.6 million) last week than the cool night air erupted in explosions and flashes of light. But these were not fireworks welcoming the Pontiff. Blocks from the route the Pope's motorcade had taken through Maseru, the capital, South African commandos were storming a hijacked bus on which a band of antigovernment Lesotho guerrillas had been holding 71 Catholic pilgrims for 29 hours. When the gunfire ended, three of the four rebels lay dead. So did a 14-year-old girl, one of 31 children on board...
...memoir of his Vatican watching during those years that is at once authoritative and anecdotal. He treats each of the three Popes in this book as a unique individual who put his personal stamp on the church, but he is most fascinating on the subject of the present Pontiff, John Paul II. In a highly unusual private dinner with the author, the Pope confided that he "could sense" his own election near the beginning of 1978's second conclave. Wynn's most provocative assertion: the Vatican at the "highest level" believes that the Soviet Union engineered the 1981 attempt...
...chorus of 200,000 serenaded Pope John Paul II, who had just turned 68, with a thundering Happy Birthday last week in the Paraguayan town of Encarnacion. During a later appearance, the impassioned chant "Freedom, freedom, freedom!" greeted the Pontiff. The cry was really meant for Paraguay's ironfisted dictator, General Alfredo Stroessner, and the Pope quietly echoed...
Though normally regarded as anti-Communist, the Polish Pope in this instance was equally critical of capitalism and Marxism. Each, said the Pontiff, "harbors in its own way a tendency toward imperialism" and employs "structures of sin" in seeking wealth and influence in the world's poor nations. What they desperately need, said he, is "impartial aid from all the richer and more developed countries...