A Bishop's Tale

During the presidential campaign of 1960, John F. Kennedy, addressing a group of Baptist ministers in Houston, declared that he believed "in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute." His religion, he swore, was "his own private affair," and no public official should request…

IN HIS FOURTH VISIT since leaving Krakow for Rome, John Paul II returned home last week at a crucial moment for his native Poland. Sometimes comically, but more often tragically, the cycles of modern European history either begin or end in Poland. The historian Norman Davies aptly called Poland "…