Pope John Paul II:
Blessing and Curse to the
World
Kenneth Cauthen
Copyright
© 2005 by Kenneth Cauthen. All Rights Reserved.
Amid all the hagiography accompanying the death of Pope John Paul II,
perhaps a more balanced assessment is in order. His legacy is
mixed, thoroughly ambiguous from my point of view. On war and
peace, social justice, capital punishment, special attention to the
poor, the dignity of all human beings, and the like, he was consistent
and eloquent. On matters of sexual morality, homosexuality, the
role of women, a married priesthood, abortion, birth control, and end
of life issues, he was a dogmatic traditionalist lost somewhere in the
middle ages, totally out of touch with the most humane and rational of
policies for today’s realities and needs.
He was pastoral, kind, and compassionate in dealing with individuals,
but he could be an angry monarch furious at the disobedience of his
subjects, who were expected to submit to his teachings and not think
for themselves. Subordination to his will, not collegial dialogue
with the faithful, was his insistent and consistent demand.
He was a tender, sympathetic pastor at the bedside of people, including
children, dying of AIDS in Africa. But his unrelenting
condemnation of the use of condoms even among married people is an
inexcusable violation of his own concern for the dignity of all human
beings. It represents a shameful triumph of rigid dogma over reason,
experience, and common sense. This point becomes even more vivid
when we consider that all decent means are needed to curb population
growth in some of the developing nations of the world.
Pope John Paul II was a stalwart foe of godless, materialistic
communism. He urged people and church to oppose tyranny in his native
Poland. It is widely acknowledged that his courage was a factor in
facilitating the growing deterioration of the Soviet Union. Thus did he
influence politics from above politics say his defenders. He also
pointed out the greed, materialism, and consumerism of advanced
capitalist societies -- warnings we would do well to heed but won’t.
But when liberation theologians in Latin America were calling for
political resistance to the excesses of capitalism in creating a wide
chasm between the rich and the poor, the Pope was instrumental in
destroying the movement because it was tainted with Marxist analysis of
material conditions and advocated violent resistance. He urged the
clergy to make peace with tyrannical right-wing despots with their
death squads. One of these terrorist groups gunned down one of his own.
In 1980 while he was saying Sunday mass, Archbishop Oscar Romero was
killed for his outspoken resistance to the inhumanity heaped upon the
poor people of El Salvador by their government. The Archbishop’s appeal
to the President Jimmy Carter went unheeded. The Reagan administration
entered into a disgraceful pact with the Pope to combat the liberation
movement and the evils of communism. The Pope gradually replaced those
in the Latin American hierarchy who sympathized with the liberation
movement. He replaced them with traditionalists more obedient to papal
directives. While he defended human rights and deplored the plight of
the poor, the church, the Pope said, was to be pastoral in this setting
not political and activist. He was so afraid of communism, to which he
urged resistance, at least indirectly or spiritually, that he, in
effect, tolerated an equally despicable right-wing dictatorship. He
angrily lectured a trembling, kneeling liberation priest and ordered
him to get along with the government. It was not that he approved of
despotic regimes but that he disapproved the way liberation theologians
wanted to deal with it. He wanted an approach and church leaders under
his control. He was generally against violence but supported,
ambiguously at least, the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The Pope apologized to Jews and to women for past misconduct toward
them. He went to a mosque and to a synagogue and made contact
with the Orthodox Church. All of this is commendable, and he
should be given full credit for this candor and openness. However, he
duly noted as dogma dictates, that while individual members of the
church had sinned, “the Church” had not, since it transcends the
vicissitudes and frailties of merely human agents. This distinction
between this inner essence and its human representatives is lost
on most of us. Is it unfair to wonder if this demarcation is
stressed more when something bad is under discussion than when its
representatives speak truth, do good, and mediate divine grace?
One is not supposed to speak ill of the dead. But maybe when a
person of such fame, prestige, power, and importance is being
evaluated, it may be more important to witness to truth, as one sees
it, than merely to be nice. In this light it has to be said that
Pope John Paul II was both a blessing and a curse to the world.
I invite comments, criticisms,
refutations, suggestions, and
corrections.
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If you want to take a break for some fun before you get to the
serious stuff, the links below will take you to some short videos
of a
humorous nature that I made. They poke good-natured fun
at
some funny aspects of religion, churches, theology, right-wing
Protestant religion, and the mixture of right-wing religion and
politics. They are designed purely for entertainment and laughter. I
hope you enjoy them. For a
list of my movies that play
on Windows Media Player, see: Essays
I am also into blogging, You will
find periodic essays on current events at http://johnwilfred.blogspot.com/
Presently, the following essays
on theological and ethical topics
are available:
Having a Web site is
becoming a family enterprise. First to have a Page
was my son.
PaulCauthen
The latest entry is that of my son-in-law and daughter.
Ric Brown
and
Nancy Cauthen
These sites are very different, but both are creative,imaginative
productions. They would welcome a visit.
Please remove * in my e-mail address before sending. The * was
added to thwart spammers.
Thank you.
Having a Web site is
becoming a family enterprise. First to have a Page
was my son.
PaulCauthen
The latest entry is that of my son-in-law and daughter.
Ric Brown
and
Nancy Cauthen
These sites are very different, but both are creative,imaginative
productions. They would welcome a visit.
Please remove * in my e-mail address before sending. The * was
added to thwart spammers.
Visitors Since May 9, 2009:
Created Tuesday, April 5, 2005.