Word: vatican
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...sooner had the Berlin Wall come down in November 1989 than the U.S. launched the first of its numerous post--cold war wars by invading Panama in December. John Paul II denounced that invasion, a position he would repeat every time the U.S. sent bombers and troops abroad. The Vatican opposed the Gulf War in 1991, the NATO air war against Serbia, the U.S. campaign against Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq in 2003--the entire spirit of "Crusade" that animates the war on terrorism. The Roman Catholic Church under John Paul II made its opposition to war as clear...
...second revolution brought to completion by John Paul II is in the church's relationship to the Jewish people. Again, the shift began with Vatican II. The 1965 declaration Nostra Aetate famously renounced the "Christ killer" slander, the Gospel charge that the Jews are guilty of the murder of Jesus. This was the source of Christian contempt for the Jewish people, a tradition that the Nazis brought to the perverse conclusion of the Holocaust...
...choose the next Pontiff. There will be plenty of intrigue in the days to come: "The battles to take care of everyone's own interests have been abounding," a Roman Curia Cardinal told TIME. But in the final days many were struck by the sudden transparency of the Vatican's thick walls. Reports on the Pope's condition were clear and regular; the press office was open around the clock. It was as though church officials were following his instructions not to miss the opportunity embedded in grief...
From his window he greeted the crowds on Easter morning and again on Wednesday, visibly frustrated at being unable to utter one last blessing, one more prayer. "Those two appearances may have been what did it," despaired a high Vatican official, as though the fate of such a man could hang on such decisions. "If he had stayed inside, he wouldn't have risked infection." By Thursday the decline was swift. Even as the U.S. continued its great debate over when to remove a feeding tube, the Vatican revealed the Pope was on one. Terri Schiavo, once a private, ordinary...
After TIME had decided to name John Paul II Person of the Year in late 1994, I and several colleagues traveled to Rome to talk with him. He was still quite vigorous then, and noted during our audience at the Vatican that though he realized that in the past TIME had picked Lech Walesa and Pope John XXIII, the magazine also had selected Stalin and Hitler. One of my colleagues remarked wryly that TIME actually kept two lists--one good and one bad--and that he was on the good list. "I hope I always remain on the good list...