Word: synods
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Outside the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, radical Italian protesters last week waved placards declaring SYNOD EQUALS REPRESSION, WOJTYLA GO HOME and WOJTYLA EQUALS KHOMEINI. The gibes at John Paul II were signs of the tension surrounding a meeting beginning inside the palace. In official Vaticanese, it was a "Particular Synod." In reality, it was an unprecedented personal intervention by a Pope to deal with the sorry plight of the Catholic Church in Holland, where the 5.6 million Catholics make up 40% of the population. The bishops are squabbling, attacks on Vatican policy are endemic, and church vitality is ebbing...
...synod met in a frescoed room known as the Hall of Broken Heads (because it was once a storeroom for broken statues). Around the U-shaped table, disputes among bishops quickly surfaced. The key personalities were Johannes Gijsen, 47, militantly conservative bishop of Roermond, and the Primate of The Netherlands, Johannes Cardinal Willebrands, 70, who since 1975 has struggled unsuccessfully to stabilize things...