Word: topic
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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John Paul designated penance as the topic for last October's synod of bishops, not only because he stresses the sacrament's importance but because its practice nowadays is in a state of flux and confusion. Theologians disagree over what sort of sins require absolution, and whether young children should confess before making their First Communion, as the Vatican desires, or a few years later when they may have a better understanding of the nature of sin. A majority of U.S. parishes now offer face-to-face confession with a priest as an alternative to the austere, anonymous...
...problems in the next month or so. My guess is that he started with money again because I was wearing a tattered shirt and an old dirty coat much too light for the freezing winds. But he changes the subject soon, perhaps sensing my boredom with money, the topic on which he had been so misguided the first time...
John moves quickly to relationships and friendships--undoubtedly a common topic for readers and the most interesting ones for their clients. (It is, in fact, the question I pondered in the beginning.) So he told me about how I pull friendships in here and there, but that there would be a time soon when I would become discouraged with them. But resist any urge to leave Boston, he counselled, because here I would find a relationship with someone whose energy would mesh well with mine. He visualized a tantalizing set of initials: S.J.N. Anyone out there? Here's M.E.F. hanging...
...movie is billing itself as the first serious drama to explore another forbidden television topic: father-daughter incest. (Brother-sister love was peeped at earlier this year by NBC'S Princess Daisy.) The two-hour show Something About Amelia, scheduled for Jan. 9, is receiving the prudent treatment that is usually accorded "controversial" subjects. Its promotional material comes replete with warnings for parents and a scholarly bibliography. Nevertheless, despite the effluence of manufactured sanctimony, Amelia is a taut and honest, if somewhat monochromatic, treatment of a painful subject...
Those troublesome debates delayed consideration of a favorite Commonwealth topic: a "new world economic order" that would allow fairer distribution of resources to poorer nations. The Commonwealth is not a rich man's club: its countries include 80% of all people in the world earning less than $200 a year. In the economic arena, too, disenchantment with the U.S. was in evidence. In a report to his colleagues, Shridath Ramphal, 55, a former Guyanese Foreign Minister who serves as the Commonwealth's secretary-general, decried "the tendency of the United States, the world's richest nation...