How do I blog Pope John Paul II?
Let me suggest some links to things that have struck me that you might not have seen. Read Uwe Siemon-Netto’s He Was My Pope Too, a fine evangelical Protestant reflection on John Paul II. Excerpt:
Who else but John Paul II gave voice to my faith and my values in 130 countries? Who else posited personal holiness and theological clarity against postmodern self-deception and egotism? Who else preached the gospel as tirelessly as this man?
The Guardian has not one but two appalling obituaries. Terry Eagleton’s He Has Blood on His Hands is, well, embarrassing. Eagleton refers to JPII’s "neanderthal attitude towards women", and calls him in summation
one of the greatest disasters for the Christian church since Charles Darwin.
Charming. The lead obituary is not much better. It includes this remarkable declaration:
More divisive was his concept of a "culture of death" as he lambasted both the death penalty and abortion, which alienated many potential allies for social justice.
Well, his prophetic consistency on these two issues (he only gradually became a strong opponent of capital punishment) was one of the reasons I loved him so very much. Even before my own conversion to the principle of the seamless garment, it was John Paul II whose teaching introduced me to the consistent-life ethic that I have come to embrace. As most folks should know, the phrases "gospel of life" and "gospel of death" appear first in his 1995 encyclical, Evangelium Vitae.
I remember the first time I read this excerpt from that encyclical:
And how can we fail to consider the violence against life done to millions of human beings, especially children, who are forced into poverty, malnutrition and hunger because of an unjust distribution of resources between peoples and between social classes? And what of the violence inherent not only in wars as such but in the scandalous arms trade, which spawns the many armed conflicts which stain our world with blood? What of the spreading of death caused by reckless tampering with the world’s ecological balance, by the criminal spread of drugs, or by the promotion of certain kinds of sexual activity which, besides being morally unacceptable, also involve grave risks to life?
The secular left would love this — save for the bit about the "morally unacceptable sexual activity". The right might embrace it, save for the suggestion that "reckless tampering with the world’s ecological balance" is a real problem, and not, as most on the right would have it, a pseudo-scientific fantasy cooked up by the enemies of progress. Happily for those of us in the consistent-life community, John Paul spoke our language. Heck, he gave us our language!
His words on the death penalty were heartening and clear:
…the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically non-existent.
As the former governor of Texas and a fan of the pope’s "culture of life", would you care to comment on the phrase "practically non-existent", Mr. Bush?
Sigh. I wish my brothers and sisters on the Christian right would not be so politely dismissive of the Holy Father’s fairly explicit environmentalism and anti-death penalty positions. I wish my brothers and sisters on the left would pay more attention to his words on sexuality, the body, abortion, and euthanasia.
I was eleven when he became the pontiff. Even then, I was interested in religion and history, and had followed the decline of Paul VI, the election and tragically brief papacy of the "smiling pope" (John Paul I), and then the election of Karol Wojtyla. As a fiercely secular, left-wing teen, I joined my family in spluttering indignation at his anti-abortion, pro-child pronouncements. In college, when I became a Catholic, I became a huge fan. Even after I left Rome, I remained in awe of him, and more than in awe, a bit in love with him and everything he was and everything he stood for.
"Once a Catholic, always a Catholic" they say. Frankly, I often daydream about going back to the Catholic Church. (Every time my new issue of First Things comes in the mail, for starters.) Three divorces and four marriages make that hard, I know. I have no intention of reconciling with my first wife, and no desire to get any of those marriages annulled. (The whole idea of annulment bothers me immensely. It’s a mulligan for marriage, and I don’t like the idea. I’d rather carry the stigma — if there is one — of multiple divorces.) I’ve belonged to many churches and called myself many things, but in some sense, I think I’ll always be Catholic.
Perhaps I am too obstinate to come back to Rome. But John Paul II made me want to come back. He still does, and perhaps he always will. The pope died on April 2. I was baptized and confirmed on April 2, 1988, at the Easter Vigil at Newman Hall in Berkeley. Coincidence, surely. But today, it doesn’t seem so.
Thanks, Hugo, especially for pointing out the article by Uwe Siemon-Netto, which also expresses many of my sentiments as an evangelical protestant. His knowledgable writing is a gift to the world of religious journalism. Living in Chicago for 25 years has given me an increasing appreciation for the Catholic Church. I saw the Pope’s influence on the Solidarity movement, and grieved with Chicago Catholics on the death of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who was an extraordinary human being and wise and devout man of God.
Sorry, but I don’t feel that the Pope should get off scott-free for refusing to find a way to allow condoms to the at-risk couples, who, contrary to general impression, included perfectly “innocent” non-philandering wives, and couples where the non-philandering HIV positive husband got infected as a result of blood products (largely for treatment of hemophilia, in the early days). Rational people would expect that the responsible thing for couples to do would be to assess the risks and look for ways to reduce them. JPII just increased the incentive for husbands to conceal their diagnosis from wives.
So from a public health perspective, JPII and the current Catholic Church have been an unmitigated disaster for the developing world.
There are theological arguments that an action with two effects, one good and one neutral or bad, can be justified if the good effect outweighs the bad. Clearly the life of the woman at risk from her HIV-positive husband is less valuable to JPII and the Church than the “potential” life of the ejaculate.
Nancy, I hear you. I’m hardly a knee-jerk opponent of the condom. But dealing with HIV with condoms will never be enough — spiritual conversion is the ultimate solution. Marital infidelity, promiscuity, prostitution — these are moral evils that condoms cannot prevent.
That said, if I were a priest in Botswana, I’d do everything I could to get women out of prostitution. But in the meantime, I’d hand them condoms. We know many priests on the ground in Africa are doing exactly that.
And why is someone who professes to be friendly to gays willing to let a man off the hook who calls gays intrinsically diseased? JPII was no different from Jerry Falwell in this respect, no matter how much he tried to dance around the issue with “it’s the sin, not the sinner”. Sorry, when you call someone INTRINSICALLY diseased, that means what it says - they are evil even if perfectly chaste. You can’t have it both ways.
Now I am perfectly willing to concede that JPII had his good points. And I really felt sorry for him soldiering on with obviously worsening Parkinson’s disease - you wanted to tell him to retire, already, and enjoy the last few months or years. But I tend to view JPII and Ronald Reagan as of a piece when it comes to dealing with AIDS, and am not going to sit around while folks whitewash the record of the deceased.
Well, those priests in Botswana are doing what they must do, in disobedience to the Pope, who would fire their a**es but quick for handing out condoms.
Of course it is better if philanderers didn’t philander, and if women had full inheritance rights and opportunities for gainful employment so they didn’t have to trick to feed their kids. But these things take time. And women don’t need their men to find yet one more excuse why they don’t have to use condoms. Women in developing countries have precious little leverage as it is. I see no reason why sex should equal death. None.
Nancy, I’m sorry, but you are misrepresenting John Paul II. Where did he ever call gays evil? "Intrinsically disordered" is NOT the same thing. Read "Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons". It’s one thing to call acts evil, another altogether to call people evil. There is nowhere in this document where homosexuals are called evil; indeed, celibate homosexuals are embraced by the church. I think of my cyber friend David Morrison in particular.
Well, JPII’s pronouncements are not necessarily well conveyed to the hoi polloi. An “intrinsically disordered” person seems a lot like “bad seed” when it filters down to the laity. What it boils down to is that “intrinsically disordered” people don’t deserve the same civil rights as the heterosexuals, that gender variant or variant-like people can be fired for their gender-treasonous behavior (heterosexual independent women who don’t wear enough makeup and don’t defer enough to the men in charge; heterosexual men who work in gay friendly occupations or who defend gay/women’s rights; all uncloseted gays and lesbians; etc.). JPII was not JUST against gay marriage, but against gay civil rights when it came to non-marriage issues. Gays should just stay in the closet or commit suicide if they can’t stay chaste outside of the priesthood, is the institutional impression one gets of the Catholic Church. And I know JPII didn’t say that, but the Church gives the impression that the most important sins are sexual and the worst of the sexual sins is homosexuality.
I wrote my piece on JPII reflecting on good and not-so-good areas of his pontificate. I admired the man for many things–his stand for economic justice (though his approach to Latin America is not so good), his critique of war and the death penalty to name a few.
And he caused a lot of pain for many RCers I know, including myself. I left the Roman Catholic church over the treatment of persons like myself and that of women. That “pastoral” of which you speak had some pretty harsh words in it about considering quarantine, though more nicely worded. And “Disordered” may not mean the same thing as “bad-seed” in philosophical terms of Neo-Thomistic theology, but the effect on the body-mind is pretty much the same thing as was the in-the-pew treatment I reguraly encountered.
It seems his consistency of life did not extend to even considering he might be wrong about us, a position of which we do not have the same privilege, daily battered with opposing points- of-view. And he did recently in his latest work ponder that same-sex unions and marriage are part of an ideology of evil and a part of the culture of death, a term to often itself destructive in its black/white in the ratchted up rhetoric of our day.
The problem is as I see it, JPII, had a penchant for throwing stones, when he himself resided in a glass house, and the consequences of this failure to look within the institution has had and will likely continue to have grave consequences in the near future of the RC tradition.
Again, I admire the man for many things, including his convictions even where I disagree, but I will also not minimize that he inflicted harm on others not only by his stances but by his authoritarian approach to disagreement with faithful Christians, including Roman Catholics, who came to other conclusions.
Hugo, I don’t have hate or anything for JPII, but it simply strikes me as a deep moral failing of the “consistent life ethic” to avoid using the church’s power to save lives from HIV the best way we know how–promoting condom use. If life itself is of value, then we should value condom use over a lot of language about teaching people to be better people. They can’t get there if they’re dead from AIDS.
Hugo,
We’re very much alike in our respect for John Paul II. I also appreciated his stands against the death penalty (I can’t quite bring myself to say it should never be used, but I am very concerned about it) and his concern for the environment. I loved how he was, as Bono said the other night, “a friend of the world’s poor.”
I also respected John Paul II for his fearless proclamation of the truth of the gospel, as seen in his wonderful encyclical, “The Splendor of Truth.”
In all of these areas, and many more, John Paul II was not afraid to make us uncomfortable and call us to a radical obedience to Christ. The world is poor for his departure, although heaven is certainly blessed.
Peace of Christ,
Chip
From reading the comments it appears that the Pope is going to get a lot of blame for the condom/AIDS issue. I think the blame is quite undeserved. First off, the church (any church for that matter) MUST remain true to its core beliefs. The faithful cannot chase a moving target. If your beliefs don’t jibe with religion A, don’t become a follower. Find a religion that suits your beliefs. There’s only about a billion variations and subsets of all the major ones out there.
If we want to stop a problem, shouldn’t we attack it’s core. While handing out condoms may seem noble at the outset, it does nothing to change people’s beliefs (not necessarily religious), attitudes, and behaviors. Clearly there has to be a better way. Culturaly acceptable norms, lack of education and poverty are the largest contributing factors in HIV/AIDS.
For some perspective in all of this, let’s look at Catholicism vs. AIDS. The 10 countries with the largest Catholic populations in the world are: Brazil, Mexico, United States, Phillipines, Italy, France, Poland, Spain, Colombia, and Germany. All these countries have an HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of less than 1%. That’s pretty low despite having populations that are more than 50% Roman Catholic (except for a couple like the US (25%) and Germany (33%)).
If we look at a couple countries in really bad shape we see Botswana with a 37% prevalence rate with 85% of the population practicing indigenous beliefs. Then there’s Zimbabwe with a 34% prevalence rate with 50% of the population pracicing a syncretic (part indigenous and part Christian) religion.
Anyhooo, my point is the Pope’s position on condom use was not as significant a factor as many might think.
Heck, how can you not respect a man who visited with and forgave the guy who tried to ice him? That’s a bigger man than me, to be sure.
Not to mention the fact that the African country with the lowest AIDS rate (Uganda) embraced church-sponsored abstienence programmes. They work.
Viva il Papa! Heaven is indeed blessed.
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
And that’s after about 10 seconds of reading one of those links you gave. An intrinsic moral evil? I’m sorry (well, I’m not, really), but I cannot respect a person (let alone a religious institution) who holds that view of queer folks. I assume that it applies to bisexuals too, and I assume that the fact that I fancy women is also an “intrinsic moral evil”. Where do these people get off? How on Earth can they think they have the right to make sweeping statements like that? It makes me sick.
I never went out of my way to study the man, and I’m sorry he was ill and died, but it seems to me that he had no right to make any kind of moral pronouncements on issues that affected him not at all, but which affect other people very deeply. How can a male, celibate, religious leader have any right to judge queer people? To condemn women to unwanted pregnancies and unwanted children? To condemn so many to a preventable death from AIDS? Not to mention the evident belief that women are inferior to men (spiritually, at least).
He did some very good things, but the man was no saint. And the sooner we as a society can critically evaluate the huge damage the Catholic Church is doing to people the world over, the better.
He did some very good things, but the man was no saint.
Ah. That is where I would disagree, though I took and take issue with his teaching on queer folk.
He was and is both a sinner and a saint, just like the rest of us. And he clearly grew in
G-d’s love throughout his life, so I would support his canonization, though I’m a little put off by the over-fawning of some Roman Catholics who refuse to see problems in his pontificate, especially in matters of authority and collegiality. He had blindspots, so did Holy Paul, Holy Augustine, Holy Hildegaard of Bingen, Holy Martin Luther, Holy Dorothy Day, Holy Martin Luther King, Jr., and all the rest…
What Amanda said–the sheer human cost of the Church’s blinkered attitude toward condom use, especially in Africa, absolutely staggers the mind. With all due respect, it seems to me you’d have to be remarkably arrogant to persist in that stance in the face of the evidence of it’s brutal human cost. Of course priests in Africa routinely ignored him, but that hardly constitutes a defense. It’s evidence JPII put his organization and those priests in an impossibly ridiculous position–forced to choose between hypocricy and a cold, dogmatic distain for the life of their parishioners. Yes, they did make the right choice, but it’s insane they had to make it.
And I’m not gay, but if I were, and I were told by one person that my deepest loves and desires made me intrinsically disordered and acting on them was an evil thing to do, and another who told me they simply make me evil, I suppose I *might* prefer the former, but it’d be a close call.
I, too, am sick of the dismissive tone that the media are using with regard to the Pope and Church teaching: that American Catholics disagree with the Pope but like him “anyway.”
It’s true that many disagree with the Pope’s (not really his but the Church’s positions which are not to change) viewpoints, and those dissenters should get their say like anyone else. But many of people AGREE with Church doctrine, and they never seem to get an interview. The media consider it a sexier story when people “rebel” against the “authoritarian” Church than when people say they agree (and are unfairly dismissed as being incapable of thinking for themselves).
As for me personally, I agree with a few of the Church’s more controversial stances — with regard to contraceptives, for example, though I’m not condemning people who use them. (A lot of those who say they oppose the Church’s stance don’t have the foggiest idea what it is…nor do they understand the benefits or details of Natural Family Planning.)
And even where I’m not quite in lockstep with the Church — ordination of women, for example — I at least take the time to research the reasons behind that stance, rather than point-blank dismiss it as misogyny.
bmmg39 - I don’t want to have a go at you, so I just want to get that clear that it’s not your opinions I’m attacking, as you have a right to hold them.
While you say you have researched your opinions, and you imply that people should research Natural Family Planning, I resent the expectation that the church seems to have that everyone should do this. I haven’t researched my opinions on the ordination of women, for instance, and I’m quite happy to dismiss it as misogyny. I see a male-dominated institution that refuses access to power and responsibility to women, and I don’t need to know the theological reasons behind that. Likewise, I don’t want to know about Natural Family Planning. It’s too much like hard work for me, and I’m quite happy with the Pill and/or condoms, thank you very much. I am an atheist, and I see no reason why any Church should have any say over my life, including how and whether I choose to reproduce (abortions included).
I have no problem with people believing what they like, and practising what their beliefs dictate, as long as they hurt nobody else. But the Church’s rules hurt many, many people, including Catholics. The late Pope was the driving force and leadership behind that. An institution such as that should show more compassion towards its own followers, and butt out of everyone else’s business.
But Birdwoman, then what’s to stop someone with a knee jerk reaction against feminism from saying, I don’t need to understand feminism and what it’s really all about. I just think it’s destroying the fabric of society, blah blah (just an example - not what I believe.) Otherwise, we’re making assumptions about positions and doesn’t that preclude us from any genuine dialogue? Then we’re stuck just shouting “misogyny!” and “sinner!” at each other.
If people only made moral pronouncements on issues that affected them directly, there would be hardly any moral pronouncements made. I’m not directly affected by the death penalty, but I believe my moral pronouncements against it are valid. And in another sense, aren’t we all affected? If the personal is political, isn’t the political personal as well?
Jennifer, that’s a good point. For me, the difference is that religious beliefs are just that - beliefs. They are based on nothing more concrete than faith. Speaking as a trained scientist, to me that gives them far less currency than positions that are based on evidence. Taking your feminism example, I’d say that feminists are responding to real situations in the real world, which can be observed and studied. When there’s an issue at stake that is based on the real world, then I do try to research it before forming an opinion. My time and interests are, however, limited, and I just don’t see why I should endeavour to study something that is defined by religious faith when real-world evidence strongly suggests that it’s misguided and wrong.
As for moral issues such as the death penalty - I agree it’s a grey area. Where does our moral responsibility begin and end? I, too, have moral objections to the death penalty. But opposing the death penalty doesn’t actively harm anyone. Unlike, for example, calling their sexuality evil and wrong, and denying them access to life-saving practices.
I hope that’s clarified my point somewhat. Hugo, I apologise for going somewhat off-topic. I’ll stop posting on this subject if you like. :-)
Oh heavens, Birdwoman, post away!
Thanks for your response!
I think feminism is an ideology or philosophy or belief system. Of course it makes use of social science and responds to the real situations, but I don’t think it’s a scientific discipline.
Re: the death penalty - I don’t know; there are some families of murder victims who support the death penalty and claim they’re harmed by anti-death penalty activists. Thinking of Sister Helen Prejean’s book here, and how she had to realize that if she didn’t reach out to the families as well, even ones who supported the death penalty, then she was causing them pain and needed to help them as well. This claim of harm is different from the health risks of not using condoms, but often people on both sides of an issue claim harm (like with pro-life and pro-choice advocates).
You said: “I just don’t see why I should endeavour to study something that is defined by religious faith when real-world evidence strongly suggests that it’s misguided and wrong.” At the least, I’d say so you can argue more effectively against it, if you really think it causes grave harm.
I don’t understand completely the argument against condoms but I understand the argument against women’s ordination much better, and I know that saying “well, women should have power too” is a bad argument, since ordination is not about power but servanthood. I’ve heard Pope John Paul II criticized for being too authoritarian. I think it’s better to argue that position on the basis that “the kings of the Gentiles lord it over them..but not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest and the leader like one who serves” than arguing the church should get with the times and be more like a democracy or whatever (just an example - I know no one here said that).
Hugo,
“Three divorces and four marriages”… now I’m really confused. Especially since I remember a post a while back in which you said you had divorced twice.
I’m not sure where that post is, Cairo. I’ve blogged my divorces many times, and I’m engaged to be married for the fourth time.
I really have a tough time understanding the adulation Pope John Paul II receives. I would certainly agree that he had his good qualities– he was intelligent, charismatic, energetic, and perhaps, compassionate– but boy, is it tough for me to respect the leader of a church that makes pronouncements on issues that have a primary impact on women (i.e. contraception) while simultaneously denying women a role in its leadership.
I am with The Birdwoman: when I consider the Catholic Church, the most striking thing to me is that it is “a male-dominated institution that refuses access to power and responsibility to women.” Perhaps it is none of my business because I am not Catholic. But it frightens me that an institution as influential as the Catholic Church is so hostile to the notion of women’s equality.
Hugo,
Yup..I know you have blogged three divorces, but when I saw four it made me recall that I had seen two, I’m really losing it….Anyway, the important thing is that you are happy now and that you will soon marry for the last time.__ So, when’s the wedding?
Keeping the actual date secret, Cairo… it will be later this year. I’ll post about it — after it happens. Though I am sure most readers would wish me well, I have no desire to attract the negative energy that might come from some if they knew the day (or the place)…
Hugo,
Everyone wishes your total and complete happiness. You are such a nice guy! I mean that sincerely, your fiancee is a lucky girl. She’s probably smart enough to realize how lucky she is and has told you so.__ Just remember this…she see’s you differently than you see yourself, to her you walk on water…Don’t let any old hang-ups get in your way this time, okay! ….Just a little advise from an old veteran.
“bmmg39 - I don’t want to have a go at you, so I just want to get that clear that it’s not your opinions I’m attacking, as you have a right to hold them.”
K.
“Likewise, I don’t want to know about Natural Family Planning. It’s too much like hard work for me, and I’m quite happy with the Pill and/or condoms, thank you very much. I am an atheist, and I see no reason why any Church should have any say over my life, including how and whether I choose to reproduce (abortions included).”
I’ll respect your wishes and not go into all the details with respect to NFP. But I WILL point out that it’s not nearly as complicated as you seem to think it is. Further, it has added benefits that few people realize. Women in couples who use Natural Family Planning are more in tune with their own reproductive systems and therefore are more likely to identify health problems than women in couples who use contraceptives. NFP can also be very good for marriages, because the days of required abstinence remind couples that sex is only one way out of a hundred to share their love for one another.
These are benefits one can enjoy regardless of what one’s religious views may be, including atheism, and even atheists may realize the sometimes-unsettling power of using something artificial to prevent a new human being from coming into existence. (Many atheists also understand that once a pregnancy has taken place, the couple has ALREADY reproduced, but that’s been covered here before.)
“I have no problem with people believing what they like, and practising what their beliefs dictate, as long as they hurt nobody else. But the Church’s rules hurt many, many people, including Catholics. The late Pope was the driving force and leadership behind that. An institution such as that should show more compassion towards its own followers, and butt out of everyone else’s business.”
I really haven’t been hurt by any of the Catholic Church’s teachings, as I agree with the ones that apply to heterosexual laypersons, and I am one.