The pope was a political revolutionary

It seems like so long ago when John Paul II became pope, but it was a very exciting time. He was the first non-Italian to become pope in centuries. He gave a spiritual impetus to the Solidarity movement in Poland at a time when it still seemed like Soviet communism would never end in our lifetimes -- a time when the Russians had just seized Afghanistan.

He was the first pope to set foot inside a sunagogue or a mosque and he made efforts to reconcile Catholicism with other religions. He was passionately anti-war and he was not afraid to chastise world leaders like Bush or Castro or to denounce oppression in places like China.

On the other hand, you can also argue -- as I heard Jeff Greenfield do today -- that the pope's conservative theology made it possible for conservative Catholics and conservative Protestants to come together in the United States -- an alliance that resulted in Bush winning the Catholic vote in 2004.

my Father-in-law (who was born in Poland ) was still alive and my Mother-in-law (who is related to Cardinal Wyszynski of Poland) were so proud of him....

Sad

Another era is passing before my eyes.....

cried when he became Pope. She sat in her chair and in broken English repeated "He is one of us, He is one of us." I will never forget that.

Yes, it is a very sad day.

thanks

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

The number of American's who were goaded by Rove's crap was not that large and most would have voted GOP anyway.

He condemned millions of people to death with his stiff-necked opposition to birth control and prevention of AIDS. His archaic views on women and homosexuality can only be described as reactionary.

He also opposed and attempted to crush "Liberation Theology" in Latin America.

with his actions when it comes to women's rights (particularly when it comes to reproductive rights) and AIDS (where his action has had catastophic consequences).

Many European bishops councils have distanced themselves from the official Vatican doctrine because of AIDS.

There's no taking away any credit from him for his crucial role in helping the revolt in Poland succeed.

He was hardly a 'spiritual impetus'- the involvement was very material. Not money (to any substantial amount) but the enlisting of the clergy and full, structural, social powers of the Church, which were very great in the country, to the cause was the contribution.

But...John Paul II seems never to have progressed beyond that moment.

He continued to believe that Poland should be some kind of Catholic monopoly and a kind of enormous monastery, the epitome of 'morality' and revival of the Church and center of an absolute resistance to the Modern Age. Poland has rejected that role.

He falsely conflated Liberation Theology with Communism. The social/economic justice efforts of the more liberal parts of the Church in South America were utterly suppressed from above during the late Eighties and early Nineties. The alternative to the peaceful politics of reform that was espoused by Liberation Theology remains armed rebellion and guerilla warfare in the region. This view of JP2 has cost lives and inflicted great misery.

Yes, JP2 "made efforts to reconcile Catholicism with other religions." But to look at all of Church policy during his tenure, the game he played was for armistice, not peace. Under JP2 all of the policies in place in the RCC crucial in a war for religious domination of the world, which is transparently the RCC's long term mission, were kept intact if not intensified.

For all of JP2's limited public critiques of Bush, the American RCC fell in line with the Bush reelection campaign just days and weeks after Dubya's visit to the Vatican in August of last year. A hard look would say that even JP2's stance against the Iraq invasion/occupation was motivated more by an conviction that it would hinder rather than help Christianization efforts worldwide, more than some abstract analysis about the justifiability of wars. The underpinning of RCC doctrine about warfare is whether it furthers God's Plan For The World, after all, not some absolutism that stands alone.

If you look at JP2's policies comprehensively, the general motif is still one of pursuit of RCC expansion and an indirect fighting of the Modern condition, which is (mis)interpreted as a new version of Ancient paganism. (All opponents of the Church throughout all of its history are seen through the same conceptualization.)

The political strategy of JP2's Church is one of the Church "withdrawing" from dominion in the First World into dominion in the Third World and retreat into small defensive communities in the First World. To understand the plan, the central concept is one of large scale 'monasterie's- countries, provinces, cities, towns, individual church communities that unite and retain the True Way And Direction while yielding the untenable regions to the Others. The idea is to draw back from and outlast the Modern Age. And the conservative social policies being retained and strengthened- on sexuality, necessity of conversion, and authority structure- can be argued to contain the plan for a reexpansion to world dominion.

So my admiration for this pope's actions against Soviet Communism is tempered by my certainty that he is responsible for continuing material injustices in the Third World and True Believer and actor of a millenium-old imperialist design on the minds and spiritual lives of mankind.