Word: xvi
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...Catholic Church (and Pope Benedict XVI) were presented with a public-relations powder keg in March when news broke that a 9-year-old Brazilian girl underwent an abortion after she'd been raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather. Catholics from São Paulo to Paris were outraged by the swift public declaration of the local Archbishop, José Cardoso Sobrinho, that the girl's family as well as the doctors who performed the abortion were automatically excommunicated. Monsignor Rino Fisichella, a solidly traditionalist Rome prelate considered to be close to Benedict, tried to soften the church...
Body language says a lot about a world leader's audience with the Pope. During his 2007 visit to Pope Benedict XVI's private library, President George W. Bush sat down across the desk from the Pontiff as if he had just landed on his own porch in Crawford, Texas: leaning back in the velvet chair, legs crossed, apparently eager to show his command of the situation...
...hard out there for a pope these days. On Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI launched what he is calling "The Year of Priests," exhorting Roman Catholics to spend the coming year honoring the sacrifice of their local pastors and directing priests to encourage each other so that they might, among other things, "be able to live fully the gift of celibacy and build thriving Christian communities...
When Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication of four bishops from an ultra-conservative movement in January, even his admirers worried that he was taking the proverbial lid off Pandora's box. The group known as the Society of St. Pius X had, after all, operated a separate ministry since 1988, when its founder, the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, ordained his own bishops in open defiance of Pope John Paul II. Two decades of schism were bound to feed both unorthodox ideas and an autonomous chain of authority...
...Holy See also referred to the Pope's letter to bishops in March that outlined how the Pius X followers are still largely operating outside of official church auspices and must now enter discussions with the Vatican's doctrinal office to confront outstanding differences. (Check out the problems Benedict XVI faced after trying to reconcile with the Lefebvrites...