Word: vatican
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...African Cardinal gets a top job in a major Vatican reshuffle...
...difficult not to be charmed by Bernardin Cardinal Gantin. Trim and tall (6 ft. 2 in.) and a youthful-looking 61, the churchman from the small West African country of Benin has emerged during the past 13 years as one of the most engaging personalities on the often austere Vatican staff. Ever ready to flash an infectious grin or pump a stranger's hand, he has even managed to upstage Pope John Paul: during a papal visit to Benin two years ago, it was Gantin who received the most rousing cheers from one welcoming crowd. John Paul...
...prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Gantin has the power to nominate, subject to the Pope's approval, new bishops for most of the world. He is the first black prelate ever to head a major Vatican office. For good measure, the Pope summoned another African, Archbishop Francis Arinze of Nigeria, to run the Vatican Secretariat for non-Christians, one of the second-echelon offices in the bureaucracy...
...thinkers; of a heart attack; in Innsbruck, Austria. Born in Freiburg, Germany, Rahner entered the Jesuit order in 1922 and established himself as a brilliant modern interpreter of St. Thomas Aquinas. The author of nearly 4,000 publications, Rahner was an influential behind-the-scenes presence at the Second Vatican Council...
...liberal-minded Jesuit in Rome doubts that "Ratzinger can pull the rug out from under priests like Gutierrez and Sobrino. They probably will only say 'That's his opinion.' " But the Vatican is highly unlikely to leave it at that. Ratzinger, noting that liberation theology "steadily attracts more and more" priests and nuns, declares it to be a "fundamental danger for the faith." A strategy to confront the movement is now, he warns, "urgent...