Rest in Peace, Not in Lies
The sad old coot has finally done himself a favour and left us for the eternal paradise. I hope he has a good time up there, I do. There's little doubt he was, at least until his last undignified few years when he was shamelessly puppeteered and exploited rather than gently put out to pasture, an efficient pope who brought the Vatican a little closer to the people, and history on the whole will remember him fondly.This was a man who said: "Man cannot live without love." Amen.
I just hope we don't forget too readily his thoughts on those he deemed to be unworthy of this utopian vision of love.
ON HOMOSEXUALITY:
"Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder. Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed to those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not."
"It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if (gay marriage) is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man."
ON ABORTION:
"Abortion is extermination which has been allowed by nothing less than democratically elected parliaments where one normally hears appeals for the civil progress of society and all humanity."
"The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn."
ON CONTRACEPTION:
"Contraception is to be judged objectively so profoundly unlawful as never to be, for any reason, justified. To think or to say the contrary is equal to maintaining that, in human life, situations may arise in which it is lawful not to recognize God as God."
Quote Peter Tatchell, British human rights activist:
"His opposition to the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV has condemned millions of people to die an agonizing, needless death. Millions of children in developing countries are orphaned, having lost their parents to AIDS because of the Pope’s anti-condom dogma.”
I put up these quotes not to dance on a dead man's grave, but to offer an alternative to the hundreds of pages of gushing praise I'm reading about PJPII.
posted by Sam @ Monday, April 04, 2005
8 Comments:
Yeah, I have to say I agree with your position here, Sam. I know people are going to bitch-slap me for saying this, but I do feel like he's currently being remembered through rose-cloured glasses. As a Christian, I've been keeping this opinion mostly to myself for obvious reasosn!
The concern now is, who gets to wear the "Drag" after him and keep the catholic faith in the dark ages
It makes me sick to read and hear all the hero worship this fellow is currently recieving.
Maybe in years to come we might get a more objective view on his popedome !!!
I thought it was perhaps just me feeling a little uncomfortable with all the praise for JP2's championing of freedom. What, I thought, about the freedom of women, whom his church continues to treat as second class citizens and of gays, treated as (at best) third rate citizens. Leaving aside all the BS, this Pope was after all, the leader of a deeply conservative institution that shows scant evidence of any fundamental change over the last millenium. Gee, if I was a Christian I'd really be angry about it.
Much of the public display of emotions is for show and fashion, like wearing hipsters and having one token gay friend. Puh-lease. Just like the time when that bitch Diana carked it.
Erm well...I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call Diana a bitch...Overrated, perhaps, but she at least used her profile to draw attention to certain atrocities (eg land mines) and didn't generally espouse the sort of hatred that could sometimes come from JPII's mouth.
Trackback replacement:
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Nic: I have not in my posting re PJPII made direct personal attacks against the man. I selected random quotes to illustrate what I believe is clear hypocrisy.
And while I understand that he was but one man and criticism should be saved for the CC more broadly rather than him specifically, you can't get past the reality that, as one man, he chose a rigid, literal interpretation of the Bible as his platform when there is now the option for a church figurehead to instead adopt and preach a more contemporary, all-encompassing sort of approach if he so chooses,eg Dr Rowan Williams.
I'm getting a bit over this attitude of "leave the poor Pope alone". Do people not understand it's actually quite offensive as a gay man to be labelled as "intrinsically evil (with) a mental disorder"? That we're contrary to "the family"? Can you blame some of us for not weeping tears of blood that the old man's gone?
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