In July 1989, Mr.Gorbachev formally renounced the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine, a policy which had justified the Soviet imposition of communist party rule in the East European satellite states.

VOA: standard.2009.11.03

Still,questions remain from his time as head of the Vatican's main office of doctrine and why Cardinal Ratzinger chose not to discipline or defrock the American priest, the Reverend Lawrence Murphy.

VOA: standard.2010.04.01