Word: pontiff
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...real" Cyril will begin to emerge after he is installed Sunday in a lavish ceremony in Moscow. Benedict, who also was a prominent figure before his 2005 election, has both confounded and confirmed the reputation as a hardliner with which he arrived at the top job. Like the Roman pontiff, one thing that Cyril will surely find is that his new post will provide surprises for which all his previous experience could simply not have prepared him. And when he responds, the world will take notice...
Shortly after Pope Benedict XVI's election, a Vatican Cardinal close to the Pontiff predicted that a Holy Land pilgrimage would be the first or second trip on the new papal itinerary. "It will happen soon," the Cardinal told me privately. "He very badly wants...
...celebration of the birth of the Lord is at our doorstep ..." Thus began Pope Benedict XVI in his annual pre-Christmas address to top Vatican officials. But rather than a pro forma holiday wish of good tidings, the pontiff delivered his latest heavy-hitting discourse on everything from ecology to ecumenism, with carefully chosen citations from past Popes and even Friedrich Nietzsche. The topic that most grabbed press attention came about halfway through the 30-minute long address: transsexuals...
...Benedict said it was wrong to think of these kinds of mass Church events as a "type of rock festival modified in the ecclesiastic sense, with the Pope as the 'star'." As he prepares to lead his fourth midnight Mass inside St. Peter's Basilica, the soft-spoken pontiff will aim yet again to reach the faithful through the force of his intellect and the grace of his prose. Many however will tune in because the man in white, even one with both academic and doctrinaire tendencies, will always carry serious star power...
...20th century was the widely respected Cardinal Bernardin Gantin of Benin, who died in May at the age of 86. Having once headed the powerful Congregation of Bishops, some thought Gantin could be an ideal candidate to replace John Paul, whose health was long suffering. But the durable Polish pontiff lived much longer than many predicted, and Gantin eventually retired back to Africa...