Word: vaticans
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Hence the controversy that has risen over the past few months as the Vatican's head restorer, Gianluigi Colalucci, and his team on the scaffold move toward the cleaning of the most famous image in Western art, Michelangelo's Creation of Adam...
...Vatican has certainly made some blunders in presenting this work to its audience. It should have allayed suspicions of haste by fully publishing its scientific analyses of the ceiling, its problems and its techniques of restoration. It was stupid to spring the cleaned lunettes on the public in 1984 under the killing glare of television wattage; that kind of lighting would make even Michelangelo's sculpture look flat, let alone his frescoes...
Catholics face a more formidable skeptic. In 1989 the Vatican issued a document saying the practice of Eastern traditions like yoga "can degenerate into a cult of the body," warning Catholics against mistaking yoga's "pleasing sensations" for "spiritual well-being." It was signed by then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger--now Pope Benedict XVI. In a 2003 document the Vatican further distances itself from New Age practices, including yoga. Even so, Father Thomas Ryan, a Catholic leader of the Christian yoga movement, says he interprets the church's position not as a denunciation of yoga but as a reminder to "respect...
...pope's agenda is divided into things spiritual and temporal and, like any world leader, into things domestic and foreign. Pope Benedict XVI has shown himself sure-footed on the home front, with clear ideas for streamlining the Vatican hierarchy and affirming traditional doctrine among the faithful. The former German theology professor was on pretty familiar turf last week when preaching to hundreds of thousands of young Roman Catholics gathered for World Youth Day in Cologne. "Only from God does true revolution come," the Pope told a Saturday night prayer vigil. "It's not ideologies that save the world...
...Vatican sources say Turkey is on top of the list of prospective destinations for the pontiff's next voyage. Benedict would like to accept the invitation from the Patriarch of Constantinople for the Nov. 30 Feast of St. Andrew. The Turkish government, however, has not yet extended an invitation. They no doubt remember Cardinal Ratzinger's views about the European Union...