Word: pontiff
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...young priest he unsuccessfully sought permission to join a related Carmelite order. The Vatican said that the intervention is "an expression of the great interest and the paternal attention of the Holy Father" to safeguard the Carmelites' "unity" and "fidelity." But the action also reflects the Pontiff's insistence that Catholic nuns hold to the old ways of discipline, dress and decorum...
...most wanted terrorists in the world. Italian authorities say he was an accomplice of Mehmet Ali Agca on that fateful day in May 1981 when Agca tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II. He may in fact have fired at least one pistol shot at the Pontiff before fleeing from St. Peter's Square. But for the past four years, the shadowy Oral Celik, 25, has remained on the loose, his whereabouts a mystery. Says one Italian official involved in the investigation of the papal shooting: "We know nothing...
...ideological motive. Agca claims that Celik was in Sofia, Bulgaria, when the plot to kill the Pope was hatched during July and August of 1980. Italian court documents allege that Celik "actively cooperated in the crucial stages of the planning, final agreement and execution of the attempt on the Pontiff." It was Celik, according to Agca, who purchased four Browning 9-mm automatic pistols in Vienna, including the one Agca was to use to shoot the Pope. Since the attempt on Pope John Paul's life, Celik has been variously reported to be dead, secluded in Bulgaria or prospering...
...delicately balanced, catechistic course. In homily after homily he warned his audiences against the seductive appeal of liberation theology, which in its more radical forms filters the Christian message through a Marxist- influenced social analysis of the class struggle. In a teeming Lima slum last week, the Pontiff declared that the church seeks "authentic liberation" through moral teaching that will set in motion forces to bring about change. But, he said, the church has a limited role in solving "concrete problems." If that was less than progressive priests and nuns would have liked, they were nonetheless cheered by the Pope...
...dispel any lingering doubts about his rigorous stance, the touring Pontiff stressed again and again the need for a disciplined church that is attentive to official teaching. To an audience of 400,000 in Caracas he issued another in his series of traditionalist condemnations of birth control, abortion, euthanasia and illicit sex. The morning after saying Mass in Maracaibo, he moved on to Merida, where he urged a throng to accept church teachings "with meekness" and not to be "dragged away by ideologies contrary to Catholic dogma...