Word: vaticaners
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...recent years, however, the Vatican has loosened the shackles on Brazilian priests and given its blessing to singers, actors and writers to go after the young and trendy crowd that were flocking to Pentecostalism. Under the title Charismatic Renewal, the Church has accepted, if not wholly embraced, priests who evangelize in song, on surfboards and skateboards, through self-help books and TV shows and on the Internet...
...center of the latest controversy, after an Italian comedian used an annual city concert in Rome to blast the Pope. Andrea Rivera, one of the MC?s of the concert, said to some 700,000 youths and a national television audience: "I can't stand the fact that the Vatican refused a funeral for Welby but that wasn't the case for [Chilean dictator Augusto] Pinochet or [Spanish dictator Francisco] Franco." He also tried this one-liner: "The Pope says he doesn't believe in evolution. I agree, in fact the Church has never evolved...
...Vatican wasn?t laughing, and on Tuesday its official newspaper L?Osservatore Romano went further, lashing out at the remarks as a ?vile attack? and ?terrorism.? "It's terrorism to stoke blind and irrational rage against someone who always speaks in the name of love,? the paper wrote...
...Rivera?s remarks may not have belonged at this feel-good concert, and it?s not surprising that Osservatore rushed to the Pope?s defense. But clearly, at a time when there is all too much actual terrorism in the world, the newspaper overreached with its analogy. Even Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi seemed to recognize Osservatore?s excess when he subsequently downplayed Rivera?s comments as simply ?foolish...
...Still, if the Vatican?s collective nerves are a bit frayed these days, it?s not hard to understand why. The recently chosen President of the Italian Bishops Conference, Angelo Bagnasco, has been repeatedly targeted with graffiti-scrawled threats in his hometown of Genoa and elsewhere. On Saturday, Bagnasco received an envelope containing bullets...