Word: vatican
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Exactly one year ago, the Vatican press corps set out from Rome on a papal trip that wasn't expected to produce major headlines. Yes, Pope Benedict XVI was visiting his native Bavaria on the Sept. 9-14 voyage, and there would be photo opportunities from his small riverside hometown and the university where he'd once taught theology. We now know, of course, that his Sept. 12, 2006, visit to his old teaching haunt, the University of Regensberg, would become the stage for the most significant moment of Benedict's papacy thus far. The provocative lecture about faith...
...editors, many of whom had come from more respectable venues, like The New York Times and the Philadelphia (not the National) Inquirer, were past masters at the fine craft of attention-grabbing. A headline like "Bloody Statue of Mother Teresa Has PMS!" would be topped by the deck "Vatican Experts Confirm:" and explained by the pull quote "After the blood stops, she gets grumpy." Those are teasers that should be taught in J school...
...Then on Jan. 6, 1948, Périer, after consulting the Vatican, finally gave permission for Teresa to embark on her second calling. And Jesus took himself away again...
...father was once one of you. Like many Irish-American boys of his generation, he joined the seminary as a teen and wore the collar until his mid-30s. On his mission in Japan, he met a lovely young Buddhist whom he successfully converted. After he wrote to the Vatican and renounced his priesthood, she in turn successfully converted him into a husband. I am one of four offspring of a former priest and a convert who overcame great odds--even scandal--to marry in the faith. Mass for us was not a scheduling option...
Though I was born after Vatican II, I did not grow up comprehending the liturgy. In Japan, Mass was said in a traditional form of Japanese too obscure for me to grasp. Twelve years of Sunday school--held inexplicably and inconveniently on Saturdays--did not help clarify all the mysteries of the missal. My father instructed us to spend the time in prayer. I inspected Jesus on the Cross and wondered what he thought of my life. I inspected the boy across the aisle and wondered what he thought of my hair. There were times I thought I would pass...