Word: popes
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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John Paul II is also a great man for the rosary. These days he appears to say it continuously and, when not actually talking, his lips move all the time in silent, repetitive prayer. Like Pope John, perhaps even more so, he loves holy pictures, relics, shrines, pilgrimages, saints and martyrs. Miracles, especially the possibility of a new one, fill him with delight. He reveres all the glittering -- some would say tawdry -- aspects of traditional Catholicism. Both John and John Paul would have found themselves at home in the pre- Reformation world of medieval Christianity...
...found it artificial and impersonal -- and undemocratic. He wanted to bring into the running of the church the thousands of bishops, hundreds of thousands of priests and the countless millions of ordinary Catholics throughout the world. Hence, in 1959, only a year after he became Pope, he summoned the Second Vatican Council. He compared the idea to a flinging open of windows, an airing, an exposure of a musty institution to fresh breezes...
...real trouble started after his death, when Giovanni Battista Montini, Archbishop of Milan, became Pope Paul VI. In theory, Paul was better qualified to be Pope, by training and experience, than any other 20th century Pontiff. In practice, he proved nervous, hesitant and indecisive. He simply could not make up his mind. John had foreseen this; he had a word for his successor: Amleto (Shakespeare's Hamlet). Under this wavering and unlucky Pope, the postconciliar church went off the rails. All over the world, but particularly in the Americas and Europe, discipline became shaky or even broke down. Thousands...
...light of eternity, the work of John XXIII and of John Paul II is of comparable importance. Both men will be treated by history as great Popes. John has a more humane face, in some ways a more attractive face: a Pope for the home and the fireside and joyous festivals of the church. John Paul is a Pope for the public forum, for the vast congregation and the open battlefield, where the forces of Christianity fight for survival in an often hostile world. He is an intellectual Pope and a warrior Pope. But he is also, and increasingly...
Behold the Slavic pope is coming, a brother of the people; He already pours the world's balm into our breasts, And the angel choirs sweep the throne for him, with flowers...