Word: popes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...mystery shrouds what this Pope is up to. His ambitions and his methods have been plain to see ever since his ascent to the throne of St. Peter. He is the quintessential missionary: this most traveled of Pontiffs believes absolutely in the personal laying on of hands, and if his message is often politically incendiary, it is invariably couched in the lofty language of Christian values...
...Sometimes at lunch with bishops, he will joke about his popular appeal," says Paul Cardinal Poupard. "He will say, 'That's the charisma of Peter.'" Yet intimates also say he is insistent that his role as Pope not be confused with his own person. He doesn't use the papal we but always says, "I think," "I believe," "I wonder." He is a good listener who asks questions and puts people at ease, says a senior Vatican official. "After five minutes you forget you're talking to the Pope. It is like friends talking over coffee." Though he devotes much...
...dealings with Cuba, the Pope has always insisted on the same huge outdoor Masses, dramatic rallies, religious pilgrimages to national shrines and high state meetings he has turned to such advantage in country after country, right wing or left. There is a remarkable clarity about this Pope: he believes that preaching the Gospel means promoting human rights, that Christ cannot be excluded from man's history anywhere in the world and that there is no future if the dignity of the individual is trampled upon. He remains as determined to rekindle Catholic faith and promote Christian values among the lingering...
...what the Pope says in Cuba won't surprise anyone who has listened to him these past 20 years. "What's going to be dramatic," says Robert Sirico, a Catholic priest who runs the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty in Grand Rapids, Mich., "is that he says it in front of Castro." Cuba, he adds, is a great challenge for the Pope. "It's like spores waiting for a little water." Can he make freedom sprout even here...
...Pope's insistence on human rights, says Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, has shaped a "new moral doctrine." But unlike Fidel, John Paul II realizes that it makes no sense to try to impose that doctrine: people must be convinced that it is right to act according to certain values. "The Pope," says Navarro-Valls, "is not interested in beating people into submission but in showing them and convincing them this makes sense." John Paul II, says a papal aide, "won't come as a conquistador...