Finally, two articles will prove suggestive and illuminating for those seeking to understand the
pontificate of Pope Francis (293-314, 315-34).
In a way, Pope Benedict XVI, seen as a conservative and traditionalist, still paved the way, not only literally, for reforms that Pope Francis would start to make from the very beginning of his own
pontificate.
Duggan's sensitive assessment of Alexander's
pontificate finds him to have been discreet, resolved, and patient.
However, from the long view of history, the Francis
pontificate could well be the exclamation point on Vatican II--change and reform is the default mode of operation, not a one-time activity.
The
pontificate of Benedict XVI will go down into the history of papacy as a unique period of bending and blending where a Pope showed no reluctance to apologize for the sins of his flock and to weld reason with faith.
Damascus, (SANA)-President Bashar al-Assad sent on Saturday a congratulatory cable to Pope Benedict XVI on the fourth anniversary of the
Pontificate of His Holiness.
The
Pontificate of Benedict XVI: Its Premises and Promises.
Where others
pontificate about doing their bit to save the planet, he is actually trying.
Or will he instead do an Alan Hansen or an Andy Gray and continue to
pontificate from the safety of the BBC's television studio?
Here Fonnesberg-Schmidt (medieval history, Aalborg U., Denmark) describes the crusades against the Slavs initiated by Eugenius III in 1147 which continued to the end of Innocent IV's
pontificate in 1254.
* Pope Benedict has authorized opening the Vatican archives for the
pontificate of Pope Plus XI (1922-1939).
All these protest groups live in centrally-heated towers and
pontificate well out of the firing line.
Certainly some
pontificate more than most, but are any such ex cathedra judgments worth the time of day outside of a cathedral?
Since the interminable
pontificate of Bill Cosby in the late 1980s, celebrities, usually uncomplicated by something to say, have, well, pontificated on fatherhood, that subgenre of memoir that's proliferated with the clumsy excess of pigeons.
