Word: visits
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...pilgrimage, Pope Benedict XVI insisted, not a political outing. The pontiff's just-completed stay in Austria was built around a visit to Mariazell, an 850-year-old shrine to Mary in the foothills of the Alps, just over two hours south of Vienna. And though Benedict used his three-day trip to touch on some familiar hot-button issues both inside and outside his Church - abortion, euthanasia, the so-called "de-Christianization" of Europe - he did so in a context and spirit that matched the humble "just-a-pilgrimage" billing he announced just before takeoff from Rome on Friday...
...Last year's World Trade Center centered around rescue workers on 9/11. Any Given Sunday (1999) was set on American football fields, not battlegrounds. So what was the 61-year-old filmmaker doing sitting in an airport lounge in Danang this week, watching himself lighting incense during a temple visit on local television news? Researching another Vietnam movie, of course. His latest project, Pinkville, focuses on the investigation into the 1968 My Lai massacre, in which U.S. troops slaughtered as many as 500 unarmed Vietnamese villagers. He spoke to TIME Vietnam correspondent Kay Johnson about parallels between Vietnam...
...Pope's press secretary, Father Federico Lombardi, emphasized that this trip is meant to be more a papal pilgrimage than a pastoral visit, with the stated purpose to celebrate the 850th anniversary on Saturday of the shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary. "My voyage is not political," the pontiff told reporters just before takeoff. "I want to join in with other faithful in this act of unity that such a journey brings." Nevertheless, Austrian Catholics will be looking to their pontiff for words of encouragement as the nation's Church continues to recover from a sex abuse scandal...
...Seychelles, 1,200 miles to the west across the Indian Ocean, where they live to this day. A court case is under way in Britain seeking damages, and the government there has reportedly paid almost $30 million in compensation to the islanders. Last year, the Chagossians were allowed to visit the graves of their relatives for the first time...
...Before we were hustled back onto Air Force One I managed to file a story for Time.com on Bush's surprise visit to Iraq. I'd rather have had something on detainee treatment or on the last remnants of Chagossian villages; maybe next time. However, the dateline for the story I did file was quickly transformed in blogosphere reprints into a joint byline that read, "by Massimo Calabresi and Diego Garcia...