Word: pontiff
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...remember what we saw at Auschwitz. Even the most hardened Vatican reporter's voice lowers to a whisper when remembering Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the Nazi death camp on May 28, 2006. The German pontiff had arrived under threatening skies, which later turned to a soft but steady rain shower as he toured the grounds, met with Holocaust survivors and read his theological discourse that asked, "Why Lord did you remain silent?" But by the time Benedict was standing before a memorial by the ruins of a crematorium, the rain had stopped, and a vivid rainbow appeared across...
...perhaps the most notable comfort that this cerebral pontiff offered his flock is his ever more pastoral persona. Entering a morning mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Benedict beamed as several thousand priests and nuns welcomed him with thunderous applause. As the mass ended, he spoke off-the-cuff, saying that the love expressed by the clergy helps him to overcome his own "spiritual poverty...
...Lawn, more than for the Queen of England; 21 guns, fife and drums, and a cake for his 81st birthday. The anticipation of Pope Benedict XVI's visit was so great, the response was so warm, it was as though his hosts were trying to raise him up, a Pontiff in many ways still in the shadow of his predecessor, John Paul Superstar. And no one seemed more eager to cast him in the brightest light than his unlikely political partner, George W. Bush...
...President, whose pursuit of Catholic and Hispanic voters in his two campaigns once helped reshape his party, could be grateful for his guest's sensitive political instincts. In his greeting, the Pontiff did not mention the war, though he did call for "patient efforts of international diplomacy to resolve conflicts." The Pope will need to draw on all of that sensitivity. His visit came as many American Catholics remain livid over the church's recent pedophilia scandals. Benedict agreed in remarks to U.S. bishops that the issue had been "sometimes very badly handled"--the first real admission of the church...
When a German journalist put the issue to the then Cardinal Ratzinger in 2002, he received a surprising answer. The Pontiff-to-be called the issue “very serious,” detailing his theological belief that animals are God’s creatures, deserving of merciful treatment...