Word: vatican
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...teachings. The 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, penned by Pope Paul VI, explicitly forbids contraception as denying the Creator's will that humans be fruitful and multiply. In the years since, despite scientific consensus that condoms greatly reduce the risk of contracting the HIV virus, nothing has budged at the Vatican. Any artificial contraception is a sin against God. Full stop...
...frank, theologically driven Pontiff knows how. The Spanish government announced it was sending 1 million condoms to Africa just as Benedict was arriving on the AIDS-ravaged continent. By the following evening, top government officials in France, Germany and the Netherlands had all publicly condemned the Pope's statement. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, accompanying Benedict on his weeklong trip to Cameroon and Angola, offered no sign that the Pontiff would back down from his statement. (See pictures of the Pope in France...
...Rome when the attempt was made on the Pope's life, Giansanti was among the photographers at Rebibbia prison when John Paul went to forgive his would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca. Giansanti's large portfolio of images of the Polish Pope at work and prayer in the Vatican were integral to TIME when the magazine made the Supreme Pontiff its 1994 Man of the Year. (See Giansanti's 1994 photograph of John Paul...
...Rome. Africa, where the faith is fervent and the Pope always popular, is a chance for Benedict to put some space between himself and the troubles back at headquarters. He landed in Yaoundé, Cameroon, late Tuesday to an adoring crowd of young and old alike, waving Vatican flags and pictures of the white-haired German, who turns 82 next month. Indeed, Africa is where the Roman Catholic Church is expanding most rapidly in the world, typically with a more devout approach to the faith. Over the past three decades, Catholics have tripled in Africa, totaling some...
...course, because the Pope is involved, controversy follows. The perennial source of it for the church in Africa was addressed on the papal plane departing from Rome on Tuesday, as Benedict repeated the Vatican's long-standing opposition to the distribution of condoms, saying it actually hindered the fight against AIDS in Africa. The church says AIDS should be combated through sexual abstinence and reinforcment of the traditional family. But that is the standard Catholic line. In this case, Benedict has the rest of the church hierarchy behind his opinion...