Word: sectarianism
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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American non-Catholics last week seemed almost as happy as Catholics to have the Pope in their midst. No old sectarian angers darkened the pageant. Whatever doctrinal reservations may remain about the Pope of Rome lay quiet, at least for the moment...
John Paul II's visit was, by contrast, a measure not only of extraordinary changes in the nation's attitude toward Catholicism but also in the Catholic Church itself. Yet for all the non-sectarian exuberance that the Pope excited, he came to the U.S. at a moment when the deeply rooted issue of anti-Catholicism had been stirring with signs of life. Some Catholics detect a new wave of the old bigotry. They see it not so much in America's residual nativist sentiment as in a certain liberal, intellectual contempt for the church...
...very angry, and I am cold and numb," said Ulster Paratroop Commander Colonel Jim Burke, "but we will not overreact because we pride ourselves in being professionals in every respect." Prime Minister Thatcher also recognized that the violence could trigger an eruption of much wider sectarian strife and avoided any display of emotionalism. In a bold, compassionate gesture, she flew to Belfast, where she strolled through the city's main shopping street to hear firsthand reactions to the killings...
Meanwhile, Ecevit's government is still grappling with an outbreak of violence that has claimed more than 1,500 lives in the past 18 months. The worst incident occurred in December, when 111 people were killed in a sectarian clash between the generally right-wing Sunni Muslims and the often left-leaning Shi'ite Muslims. An ardent civil libertarian, Ecevit reluctantly imposed martial law in 13 of Turkey's 67 provinces. Martial law was later extended to six eastern provinces to head off potential Kurdish unrest stimulated by the revolution in Iran...
Islam is not a collection of individual souls but a spiritual community; its sectarian divisions, as well as the man-made barriers of race and class that Islam opposes, dissolve dramatically at the hajj. Once a pilgrimage made mostly by Muslims of the Middle East and North Africa, the hajj has become a universal and unifying ritual. For those who have taken part in it, the hajj acts as a constant testament to Islam's vision of a divine power that transcends all human frailties...