Word: pontiff
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...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...
...nothing if not even-handed. In a 20,000-word encyclical letter, Pope John Paul II last week blasted both East and West for an ideological rivalry that has created a "direct obstacle" to healing the ills of the Third World. That, said the Pontiff, amounted to nothing less than a "betrayal of humanity's legitimate expectations." The document, titled Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (The Social Concerns of the Church), contains some of the most sweeping social pronouncements the Pope has yet made. It was issued as an updating of Pope Paul VI's influential 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio (The Development...
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...
...compliance with the peace plan. Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez accepted, provided that other Central American leaders approved Spain's participation. Ortega then flew to Rome, where he had a 30-minute private audience with Pope John Paul II. It was the first meeting between the two men since the Pontiff's tense visit to Nicaragua in 1983, and the welcome was decidedly chilly. Speaking in Spanish, the Pope spent much of the time lecturing Ortega on the right of Nicaraguans to live under a "real democracy." Joked Ortega afterward: "It was certainly colder today in Rome than in Nicaragua...
Waldheim has vowed not to be bound by the panel's findings. He is busily making plans for the spring, and will greet Pope John Paul II in June when he visits Austria, which is 85% Roman Catholic. When the Pontiff met Waldheim at the Vatican last summer, the audience drew protests from the international Jewish community. This time the Vatican pointed out that John Paul's upcoming encounters with Waldheim are standard protocol for papal trips abroad...