World: The Pope Who Sings

Seated at a Rome refectory table, a young priest tells of hearing the Pope at his window singing along with a choir far below in St. Peter's Square. An older priest shakes his head. "This could not happen," he says emphatically. "Popes do not sing."

That may have been true in the past. But no longer. Last week, as Pope John Paul II made his triumphal progress through Poland, the watching world began to grasp what people in Rome and the highly conservative Vatican Curia have known for months: this Pope not only sings, but he sings out. He also kisses babies,...

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