Dead Pope
4 April 2005 by RonI’ve never been a huge fan of J.P.II’s. There’s the whole God thing, of course; and then, on anything that had anything at all to do with sex, sexuality, gender, reproduction, and the like, he was a totally insane troglodyte — from abortion to birth control to homosexuality to condoms and AIDS to child-abusing priests, the guy was wrong, wrong, wrong. Still, other than the sexuality-related things, he had his virtues, especially compared to most of the idiots who pass for religious leaders in the U.S.: The Popester was pretty good on war and peace (anti-war), rich and poor (for wealth-sharing), and science vs. ignorance (pro-evolution).
Still, I’m sick of the outpouring. For a little more reasonable take on the dead Pope, then, I suggest Gullibility isn’t in the dictionary’s nice piece, John Paul II kicks the bucket.
4 April 2005, on 7:38 pm
As far as leaders of the catholic faith go, he was a pretty decent sort. Compared to leaders, or better yet, humans in general… well, not so much. Can’t completely condemn him because of the war and peace stuff though. Hopefully they’ll bring in someone whose sense of right and wrong is a bit more modern, but I’m not holding my breath.
7 April 2005, on 3:35 pm
A not-so-charitable obit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5162343-103677,00.html
8 April 2005, on 7:43 pm
fucking ridiculous how the herd can organize to mourn some human’s passing, yet, when it comes to actually doing something positive to bring about real change in this world, the herd quickly dissapates. fucking hypocrites.
great site, keep up the great work
mo
http://www.mind-ink.com
12 April 2005, on 2:27 am
I was hoping the Pope would hang in there for another 10 or 15 years. He provided a perfect mirror image of the Catholic Church - bigoted, decrepit, diseased, incoherent and unsightly! Especially that last public appearance where he looked like he’d discovered he’d pissed his robes (again). Sadly the Catholic church now has the chance to pick someone more charismatic to incite the crowds with a bit more Christian demagogery.
While it was disturbing to see millions of people mourning his passing, I was cheered to see lots of Polish and Italian flags flying - obviously people still have that latent streak of nationalism which ignores the bit in the bible about living in harmony with your brothers and sisters. There’s hope that they’ll learn to ignore the rest of the bible too!
11 July 2005, on 6:31 am
[...] Didn’t take the Vatican long (under the leadership of Joey Ratzo, formerly head of the Office of the Inquisition) to shit on the late pope’s at least slightly pro-science and pro-evolution legacy. The NYTimes has an op-ed from Christoph Schönborn (”Finding Design in Nature“), the Roman Catholic cardinal archbishop of Vienna, twisting words from JP2’s past and trying to side with the forces of anti-science and anti-intellectualism. [...]