Word: visit
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Peter Steinfels, executive editor of Commonweal and author of The Neo-Conservatives: Perhaps the Pope's visit will finally convince the media that religion is a serious reality, not only in backward places like Mexico and Iran but also in the U.S. Polls show that 90% of Americans believe in God and pray often, but most of the serious observations about this country are made by the other 10%. Nothing has changed since H.L. Mencken in the way that public commentators look at the reality of religious life...
...startling confirmation of the substantial changes that have occurred in American attitudes toward the Roman Catholic Church and the papacy. One has only to imagine the nation's furious reception if Pope Pius XII had appeared in America 30 years ago: Congressmen would have introduced resolutions denouncing the visit; angry pickets would have greeted the Pontiff at every stop. It would have seemed un thinkable to invite him to the White House...
John Paul II's visit was, by contrast, a measure not only of extraordinary changes in the nation's attitude toward Catholicism but also in the Catholic Church itself. Yet for all the non-sectarian exuberance that the Pope excited, he came to the U.S. at a moment when the deeply rooted issue of anti-Catholicism had been stirring with signs of life. Some Catholics detect a new wave of the old bigotry. They see it not so much in America's residual nativist sentiment as in a certain liberal, intellectual contempt for the church...
Though Jackson had intended a return visit to Beirut and a trip to Damascus, Sadat now suddenly sent him in a presidential jet bearing personal messages to the P.L.O. chief and to Syrian President Hafez Assad. Sadat's bizarre action left diplomatic observers puzzled, as Jackson was a newcomer to Middle East politics, and there were more appropriate, Arab candidates at hand. Jackson, nevertheless, left immediately for Beirut, where he briefed Arafat on Sadat's proposal: cessation of P.L.O. hostilities against Israel in the hope of winning Israeli recognition. Arafat immediately called a meeting of the P.L.O. Central...
...presidential visit to the Vatican in 1970 led to one of those scenes that are comic in retrospect but mortifying when experienced. Our advancemen had conceived the extraordinary idea that the President should leave for the Sixth Fleet from St. Peter's Square in a U.S. helicopter. The Curia, feeling that this represented enough martial trappings for one day, suggested that Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird not be included in the audience that the Holy Father would offer. However, as the official party was moving into the papal chamber for the general audience, Laird, a politician of considerable ingenuity...