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.
Please remove * in my e-mail address before sending. The * was added to thwart spammers. Thank you.
My E-Mail Address

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:
About the Author
A List of my Books
 Outrages of the Schiavo Case
 Interpreting the Bible Today
 The Authority of the Bible
 Using the Bible with Integrity
 Theology as Religious Belief
 What I Believe
 Natural Law and Moral Relativism
 What is Truth -- and Does it Matter?
 A Doctrine of God (Short Version)
 A Doctrine of God (Long Version)
Trinity: God, Christ, Spirit
 God as Masculine and Feminine
 Theodicy: the Problem of Evil
 Theodicy: A Heterodox Alternative
 The Many Faces of Evil
 A Contemporary Christology
 Christ and Christians:
A Critique of Nieburhr's Christ and
Culture
 The Incompatibility of Christianity and Civilization.
Christian Ethics

Process Christian Ethics

The Ethics of Belief

Relativism, Morality, Belief
Religion and Politics
Relating Jesus to Jefferson
 Liberation Themes in Country Music
 
Liberation Themes in White Southerners
Southern Tragedy
Capital Punishment
Physician Assisted Suicide
Prescription Drugs and the Little Red Hen
 Bioethical Decision-Making
Prostitution
Abortion
Drug Policy
Homosexuality
Theology and Ecology
Religion and Politics
Science and Theology
Church and State
A Short Biographical Sketch

For an updated version of Mother Goose for the modern age, visit
Mother Goose Goes Electronic

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.

My E-Mail AddressReligion and Politics
Science and Theology
Church and State
A Short Biographical Sketch

For an updated version of Mother Goose for the modern age, visit
Mother Goose Goes Electronic

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.   My E-Mail Address


Visitors Since May 9, 2009:

Web Host

Web Host


Created Tuesday, April 5, 2005.