Word: pope
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...major writings and speeches, which by all accounts are the work of his pen alone, are consistently clear and often quite potent. But more and more, it seems, there will be some sentence or citation - or a blatant omission - that inadavertently ignites controversy, if not outright rage against the Pope. The Vatican eventually kicks into damage-control mode, and finally, Benedict is left with the awkward task of serious papal (and public) backtracking. Indeed, there was a "here-we-go-again" buzz circulating among Vatican insiders as the Pope went out of his way this week to clarify his view...
...such conviction and confidence who, even they would admit, doesn't have the deft diplomatic touch of his predecessor. Particularly in these high-profile speeches, his main objective is to push the intellectual envelope, and prove a point with whatever historical and philosophical means are at his disposal. The Pope's critics, by contrast, warn that Benedict is missing advisers who can help edit his speeches and tell him what he might not want to hear, so he isn't forced to eat his words after the fact. In the 25 months of the papacy, the following five diplomatic incidents...
...STATEMENT: According to a leaked draft of Benedict's condemnation of the suicide bombings in the London transit system, the Pope was going to characterize the attacks as "anti-Christian...
...CORRECTION: Though it wasn't clear if the phrase from the draft speech was actually the Pope's or that of then Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano, it was excised from the official version released by the Vatican. It was an early sign that there might be problems in the way the new pontiff and his aides respond to diplomatic crises...
...STATEMENT: In an otherwise poignant theological meditation on the Holocaust, the Pope made no mention of anti-Semitism, or the fact that the Nazis killed millions of Jews because they were Jewish. Benedict also failed to acknowledge that there might be some degree of collective responsibility of the German people, blaming the Holocaust solely on a "ring of criminals...