Basic HTML Version
PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MAY 31, 1985
PAGE 9
program is no excuse for its perpetuation, whether it is a wel
fare plan or a weapons system."•••
Although Teddy utters these trendy remarks with high energy and
full-throated oratory, nothing in his voting record in recent
years suggests any movement away from liberalism•••• No matter:
the public probably won't check the rhetoric against the rec-
ord....
Kennedy's biggest worry is [New York Governor ] Mario Cuomo, the
new darling of the liberal establishment•••• But Kennedy current
ly outdistances Cuomo and all others in the Garth survey.•• (Garth
also has Teddy leading [Vice President George ] Bush by six points
and [Republican Congressman Jack] Kemp by 12.) Certain Yuppie
control groups are testing out in favor of EMK, too. Recall that
that constituency makes up 43 per cent of the vote, a sector that
might be more willing to let Kennedy submerge the 16-year-old
Chappaquiddick issue, so to speak.
Watch out for Teddy the
Centrist.
Dutch Treat
Never in all his previous foreign travels, not even in Nicaragua, was Pope
John· Paul II so rudely received as on his recent trip to the Netherlands.
There he was met by rock-throwing crowds (some sporting
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Popebusters
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em
blems), a stubbornly liberal ·national church leadership and embarrassingly
small crowds. Here are excerpts df his ordeal as published in the May 28,
1985 international edition of NEWSWEEK:
Wherever he travels, Pope John Paul II usually basks in attention
and adulation. But for four days in the Netherlands last week,
the pontiff was hounded and harassed as never before. In Utrecht
as many as 3,000 radicals, militant homosexuals, punk rockers,
skinheads and even a few liberal Roman Catholics gathered in a
downtown square to protest John Paul's visit. Some of the demon
strators, dressed as priests and pregnant nuns, shouted "Kill the
pope,
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1
while others released bunches of helium-filled condoms
1.nto the air to mock the Vatican's policy against birth con
trol••••
In part, the stormy welcome was yet another symptom of the "Dutch
disease,
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a mixture of rebellious rudeness and self-righteous
moralizing that is deeply rooted in the Dutch character. But the
protests told only half the story. John Paul's toughest chal
lenge came from the moderately liberaI"-;-ma1.nstream core of the
Dutch ciiurcn:-- fnmeet1.ngs with the pope, Catholf'c'ssharply
cr1.t1.cized current church policy on a gamut of modern social is
sues. The contentious reception shocked Vatican officials accus
tomed to friendlier greetings.
The pope avoided showing any trace of anger and never stepped
back from his crusade for a "Catholic Restoration" intended to
solidify the Vatican's control over the church and to reinforce
conservative values among its flock of 800 million. Even so, the
papal visit•••raised anew the question whether Rome someday may
be forced either to grant limited autonomy to dissident national
churches or risk losing them from the fold altogether.