Word: vatican
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...events that have shaken the Soviet bloc in 1989, none is more fraught with history -- or more implausible -- than the polite encounter that will take place this week in Vatican City. There, in the spacious ceremonial library of the 16th century Apostolic Palace, the czar of world atheism, Mikhail Gorbachev, will visit the Vicar of Christ, Pope John Paul II. Before delivering formal speeches in the presence of their entourages, the two East Europeans will sit down alone to chat in Russian without interpreters...
...violence did not cease with Stalin's death in 1953. In 1981 Pope John Paul barely escaped assassination. It is believed in the highest circles of the Vatican that Gorbachev's Kremlin predecessors were the masterminds, though the Soviets deny this. The reason for the attack, claims a ranking official of the Holy See, was that the Polish Pope refused to accept the division of Europe into East and West. "The East bloc," says this official, "realized he was a destabilizing factor...
...breakthrough came when the Pope boldly dispatched Casaroli, by now Vatican Secretary of State, and seven other Cardinals to Moscow last year to celebrate the Christian millennium. Casaroli managed a 90-minute meeting with Gorbachev and handed him a three-page letter plus a memo from John Paul listing complaints about treatment of Catholics. Gorbachev responded directly to several of the Pope's requests. Last year Lithuania's two leading bishops were returned to head dioceses after a combined 53 years of internal exile, and the cathedral in Vilnius, previously used as an art museum, was restored for worship. This...
...churches. Diplomatic relations with the Holy See were established in July. Hungary, also rapidly liberalizing, is 60% Catholic and has sizable Lutheran and Reformed churches. The regime is rewriting the religious-control laws, has abolished the repressive state Office for Church Affairs and, after talks last week at the Vatican, has indicated that diplomatic relations will be re-established. The Pope is due to visit Hungary...
...toppled Czechoslovakia's rulers last week were inspired by, among others, Frantisek Cardinal Tomasek, 90, who has become an increasingly militant proponent of change. The ousted Jakes regime, which had permitted the appointment of six new Catholic bishops, only two weeks ago concluded a round of talks at the Vatican. In East Germany, the bloc's only predominantly Protestant state, this year's pro-democracy movement emerged from small church gatherings that, through the 1980s, criticized the Communists' handling of foreign policy, disarmament and the environment. A bishops' statement read from every pulpit Sept. 10 detailed "long overdue" changes. Most...