Word: vatican
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...aides in place only gradually, as jobs open up. John Paul II's first major appointment, two years ago, was Papal Loyalist Agostino Cardinal Casaroli as Secretary of State. Other changes slowly followed, including the selection last September of U.S. Archbishop Paul Marcinkus as chief administrator of Vatican City. Now, at the start of John Paul's fourth year, his lineup is virtually complete. The Pope has just named West Germany's Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 54, to be his doctrinal watchdog as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Holy Office). Ratzinger...
...were still publishing an Index of acceptable books after World War II should perk a few suspicions. And as it turns out, Nichols is an avowedly sympathetic critic, very much intrigued by the faith, and himself married to a Catholic. He is on good terms with much of the Vatican, and indeed many of his anecdotes begin with the author sitting down to lunch with one bishop, or chatting in one Vatican hallway or another...
Nichols's analysis of world overpopulation is equally dizzying. He plants himself firmly by saying that the Vatican "gives far too little importance to population problems because of its teaching on birth control." But after some fancy footwork, a few pages later, he places overpopulation in his list of ten "principal causes of the decline of the human condition, about which the Catholic church has a perfect right to formulate views and let them be known as part of its claim to moral leadership." Nowhere does he imply that the Church should reconsider its approach...
When Nichols is not treading so nimbly, he is usually coming down squarely on the side of the Vatican on any controversial issue. Although, for example, the Vatican has refused to exchange diplomatic representatives with Israel, Nichols seems genuinely disappointed that Israel did not pay more attention to the Vatican's advice on how to supervise archeological shrines in Israel...
...increasingly aware of a strong negative reaction inside me to people whom I feel, on first meeting, to be in some way negatively directed: to have too large a proportion of malice, or envy, or some other defect that disables their personalities." By necessity, the severest criticisms of the Vatican come not by the design of the author, but rather by the little absurdities that creep through the narrative. Nichols, for example, dryly sets forth the procedure for papal selection; he hardly mentions the irony of a ballot system so full of verifications and double checks that the cardinals seem...