Word: pontiff
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...many Catholics, increasingly teetering on the brink of agnosticism, disillusionment and dissatisfaction, the pontiff's visit created the opportunity to examine received orthodoxy. For, in spite of a growing schism, the Catholic Church continues to appeal to American youth in unprecedented numbers...
...questions about the relevance of the pontiff's message persist...
...Pontiff has directed bishops "not to lose heart" or create a "climate of discouragement" around celibacy. He also reinforced church adherence to the rule of celibacy in his Holy Thursday missive to the world's priests, saying "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." As for the sinners among the ranks, many church officials feel they have little choice but to forgive. Says a Vatican official: "We'd all be in a mess if we couldn't be forgiven." However, for the women and children who have suffered, forgiveness is not only not divine, it is certainly...
...preceded and attended by Silence," wrote Herman Melville, one of the loftiest and most eloquent of souls. Working himself up to an ever more thunderous cry of affirmation, he went on, "Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff's hands upon the world. Silence is the only Voice of our God." For Melville, though, silence finally meant darkness and hopelessness and self-annihilation. Devastated by the silence that greeted his heartfelt novels, he retired into a public silence from which he did not emerge for more than 30 years...
WHAT LASTING MARK HAS POPE JOHN PAUL II MADE? The Pontiff is renowned, among other things, for his vigorous effort to stem dissent and clarify what Catholicism stands for. Thus the newly issued Universal Catechism "will be the signature that the Pope leaves behind him," says a ranking Vatican official. The 676-page summary of essential beliefs on doctrine and morals applies to all the world's 850 million Catholics. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, the Vatican's uncompromising doctrinal monitor, led the six-year project. His staff went through nine drafts and fielded 24,000 proposals from bishops. The French edition...