Word: rome
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...over the world, but particularly in the Americas and Europe, discipline became shaky or even broke down. Thousands of priests gave up their vocations and married. Nuns took to feminism. Quasi heresies like Liberation Theology became the mode. Some hierarchies, such as the Dutch, virtually broke free of Rome. The Vatican began to allow annulments of marriage by the thousands -- amounting to a Catholic sanction of divorce. Its finances were out of control. By the time Paul died in 1978, the church was in its worst crisis since the Protestant Reformation...
Again unlike John, John Paul did not wait for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: he acted himself, quickly and purposefully. This sometimes meant summoning and hectoring an entire hierarchy, as in the case of the Dutch bishops. More usually it involved inviting to Rome difficult or disobedient bishops for a quiet but firm admonition -- "an awesome experience," as one of them put it to me, "a premonition of being received by St. Peter at the Last Trump." John Paul has also taken more trouble than any of his recent predecessors to ensure that all new bishops appointed are loyal...
...years now, Karol Wojtyla -- once actor, then priest, then Archbishop and Cardinal -- has been Pope John Paul II, the Supreme Pontiff, Bishop of Rome, leader of a church of nearly 1 billion souls. "It's curious," an Italian Archbishop once said, "you'd think he had always been Pope." And yet to understand the man and his papacy, one must look not only to the Vatican, from which he issues spiritual guidelines, but also to the almost mystical Poland he holds in his heart. Indeed, though the Pope's corner bedroom on the third floor of the Vatican's Apostolic...
...Italy, the Pope must plow through daily scheduled meetings and audiences, prayers and Masses, visits to Rome's 320 parishes and deep philosophical debates. Yet he remains intensely interested in anything involving the church in Poland. John Paul reads the Cracow Catholic weekly Tygodnik Powszechny as soon as it arrives at the Vatican. Indeed, bishops around the world have caught on to this habit and compete fiercely to have their latest works published in what editor Father Andrzej Bardecki calls "our little weekly...
...Pope's day begins while Rome still sleeps, around 5:30, and does not end until 11:30 p.m. By 6:15 he is in his private chapel, praying and meditating before its altar, over which hangs a large bronze crucifix. Within sight is a copy of Poland's most cherished icon, the Black Virgin of Czestochowa, from whose image Poles historically drew strength as they battled against their oppressors...