Word: priesting
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...does the ban on priest-politicians extend...
Hollingsworth's background is eclectic. "When I was 11 my dad asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said 'psychiatrist.' A couple of years later he asked again and I said 'priest.' Now I've sort of combined them." After deciding in four months at Hampshire College that "there was nothing to learn in college, he studied primal scream for a year, then took classes in New for a year, then took classes in New York with a healer. He almost made a pilgrimage to India, but instead trekked across North America visiting healing...
...maddening diversity. Africa is a continent whose people speak more than 800 languages. They suffer from bloody national divisions, as well as unimaginable poverty and disease. Africa is a continent where some Catholics still go to the local witch doctor when their children fall sick and where a black priest has questioned the use of bread and wine in Communion because they are associated with wealthy white settlers...
...Quite the contrary: in the words of one missionary, many an African's esteem is measured by how many children he has rather than by how many books he writes. But what is John Paul to do about a country like Zaïre, where many priests are living with concubines? In some dioceses it is difficult to find a truly celibate priest to become bishop. Polygamy is also widely practiced, and there has been discussion about the possibility of admitting polygamous men to full membership in the church. But John Paul does not feel free to follow local...
Catholics in Zaïre are also "Africanizing" the liturgy in ways marked by high church attendance and great zeal. At a typical Mass the young priest dons a zebra's mane headdress while assistants, men and women alike, clap and shuffle around the altar to the throbbing of drums and an occasional shrill scream of religious ecstasy. The congregation swings, sings lustily and sways with the rhythms. "The Latin rite is too impersonal for Africans," the priest explains. "The Zaïreans' Mass comes from the heart." Clergy were chilled a bit when John Paul insisted...