Word: pontiff
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...Catholic values that had helped deliver ) them from communism. He saved his most stinging comments for abortion, which has been legal since 1956 but is now in danger of being outlawed by a church- backed bill under consideration in Poland's parliament. At an outdoor Mass in Radom, the Pontiff compared abortion to the Holocaust and sternly asked, "What parliament has the right to say, 'You are free to kill'?" The polite applause bore witness to Poles' growing ambivalence toward church interference in government policy. According to recent surveys, almost 60% of Poles oppose the antiabortion bill and consider...
With Pope John Paul II due to visit his native country in June, Poland's Roman Catholic prelates busied themselves preparing a present for their Pontiff: strict antiabortion legislation that would ban the procedure completely, including cases stemming from rape and incest. The antiabortion bill, which the church lobbied for mightily in the Polish Sejm, or lower house of parliament, prescribed jail terms for doctors who performed abortions, even on women whose lives were endangered by pregnancy...
...Barrio issued a harsh letter charging that the U.S. government is boosting Evangelicalism to "help consolidate its economic and political power." Pope John Paul II believes the inroads of unnamed "sects" could become "disastrous." During last year's tour of Mexico, designed in part to counter Evangelicalism, the Pontiff directed clergy to abandon "timidity and diffidence" in combatting their rivals...
...Portugal, Austria, Russia, Japan; the Papacy itself once suppressed the organization for 41 years. In modern times, no episode was as humiliating as the vote of no confidence that Pope John Paul II cast in 1981. After the society's head, Superior General Pedro Arrupe, suffered a stroke, the Pontiff suspended the normal succession and installed his own men as the Jesuits' temporary leaders...
...tradition in bland language. But it states that faculties are expected to follow "the teaching authority of the Church in matters of faith and morals." Schools will normally run their own affairs, but they will also have "a special bond with the Holy See." In a surprise inclusion, the Pontiff states that the majority of teachers at Catholic institutions must be Catholics themselves...