ROMAN CATHOLICS
For Pope Paul VI, the solemn ceremonies of Holy Week were more sorrowful than usual. On two successive days, in his most anguished public statements to date on the crisis in the Roman Catholic world, the Pope issued extraordinarily direct attacks on defecting clergy and dissent within the church.
Speaking to pilgrims in St. Peter's Basilica on Wednesday of Holy Week, the Pope identified the present-day sufferings of the church with the agony of Christ. "The Lord tests us," he declared. "The church suffers from the abandonment by so many Catholics of the fidelity that centuries-old tradition merits." Even...