ALL POPE ALL THE TIME!
The Pope marathon's in full-swing . . . SALON
from SLATE Irish bookmakers say this guy's the frontrunner to succeed John Paul II - he's Opus Dei:
Dionigi Tettamanzi
Country: Italy
Age: 71
Assets: Italian.
Liabilities: Italian.
Only 5 percent of the world's Catholics live in Italy. So, why is an Italian even on the list? Because 35 percent of the voting cardinals either represent an Italian diocese or work for the Vatican administration. There may also be a sense that the church went through its wacky experimental phase by choosing a Polish pope and needs to get back to normal.
Tettamanzi is conservative and well-liked by the very conservative Opus Dei movement; most of the voting cardinals are conservative, too.
John Paul II - He was good for the world; bad for The Church . . .
This will be an exercise in point-counterpoint, you know, a declarative sentence followed by a "but on the other hand . . ."
Pope John Paul II provided encouragement for citizens in the Soviet satellites, particularly in his homeland, Poland, where his support for SOLIDARNOSC was immeasurable in the effort to democratize and eventually shred the iron curtain.
On the other hand, had there been no John Paul in the Papacy, the Soviet machine was creaking. More than the American president Ronald Reagan or the Pope, people power and the serendipity of savvy apparatchik Boris Yeltsin gave impetus to the velvet counter-revolution that continues in fits and starts, a step forward, a couple steps backward . . .
John Paul II championed liberty, peace, the democratization of capitalism, and the "culture of life".
On the other hand, this Pope condemned "liberation theology" which threatened the right-wing dictatorships in South and Central America even as he meddled in American politics over socio-cultural issues. His "culture of life" was inconsistent - to the conservatives who embraced his pronouncements against abortion, but dismissed his argument against war and capital punishment - and to the liberals who read his bullheaded opposition to contraception in the face of overwhelming population numbers in poor countries and the burgeoning incidence of HIV-AIDS epidemic among the most ignorant of his church's members, as a "culture of death".
He travelled the world courting the young and the poor. He sought genuine rapprochement with other religions. In particular, he sincerely sought the forgiveness of the Jews for their long-standing oppression at the hands of the Church.
On the other hand, this Pope has presided over a major decline in membership in the Church in Europe. He busied himself with other, more self-aggrandizing, pursuits while the priest-pedophile scandal festered below the surface of public consciousness, then burst full-blown in American Catholic diocese across the landscape. His willful ignorance of concerns among the American membership have almost assured a movement largely autonomous American church in the near future, if not a schism. Contraception, acceptance of homosexuality and maybe even a limited sanctioning of abortion find favor with a majority of American Catholics. Meanwhile, the Pope failed to understand that celibacy played an important role in the pedophilia scandal. The growing shortage of priests is the most urgent issue facing the Church, particularly in the U.S. American Catholics are ready to look at solutions - the end of mandatory celibacy and/or the ordination of women.
American Atheists http://www.americanatheist.org had this to say about other troubling aspects of John Paul's tenure as Pontiff: * The Vatican has never fully revealed the facts behind the banking scandal that rocked international financial institutions in the early 1980s, including the pope's own Institute for Religious Works. * During his tenure in the papacy, John Paul faced charges even from critics inside the church that he was operating a virtual "saint factory," beatifying and canonizing a record number of candidates including some accused of fraud and even practitioners of self-flagellation and other questionable behavior. * Even in the wake of the Vatican bank scandal, the IOR/Holy See continued in its efforts to hide evidence that it was the beneficiary of large amounts of gold (and possibly other financial assets) confiscated by the Nazi puppet regimes in the former "Catholic State of Croatia" and elsewhere in Europe. Indeed, the Vatican has been pressuring U.S. courts to stop any disclosure of IOR assets and their origin. * The full dimension of the "pedophile priest" scandal may never be known, especially its extent outside the United States. It is doubtful that any meaningful U.S. or international inquiry will ever take place. Pope John Paul II may be tarred with the taint of this clerical impropriety.
HOW WOULD HOMER SIMPSON CONSOLE LISA
over the Pope's passing?
(This is funny - unless, like me, you're a filthy little atheist who keeps track of everybody, human or 'toon, as theist or non-theist. I've been watching long enough to know that Lisa Simpson is a nonny, hey-hey!)
Homer: Well, it's like the time that your cat Snowball got run over.
Lisa: Uh huh.
Homer: Remember, honey?
Lisa: Yeah.
Homer: What I'm saying is, all we have to do is go down to the pound and get a new pope.American Atheists also reports President Bush has ordered that all American flags be displayed at half staff on Friday to commemorate the funeral of Pope John Paul II. The practice is usually reserved for U.S. officials including presidents and justices of the U.S. Supreme along with state governors, peace officers and members of the military. Chapter 10, Title 175, however, does give Bush the legal authority to order a half staff display "as a symbol of respect for other officials and foreign dignitaries." "It's inappropriate for the American flag to be lowered as a salute to a foreign religious leader," said American Atheists President Ellen Johnson in a statement issued today to news reporters. "There is no secular purpose for this, and Americans would be outraged if Mr. Bush ordered a similar acknowledgement for the death of an Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish or Protestant prelate."
(D'oh!)
Jessica Simpson's not related to Lisa, we're pretty sure . . .
OLDEN GOLDEN FLASHBACK
Let's recall the good times with John Paul & "The Popemobile":
(Click on thmbnails to view)
<=== "OH JOHNNY, OH JOHNNY, OHHH!!!
(Click)
AND THE STORK BRINGS BABIES
And how about condoms don't work? Having sex before marriage is the source all misery in life? Women need to play dumb or resign themselves to spinsterhood? Bushco has a website to ensure that what is being taught to high school students in lieu of giving them information that could save them from unplanned pregnancies and STDs can be reinforced at home by Mom & Dad. Despite all sorts of studies that show that abstinence-only education doesn't work and the ethical problems with lying to kids in order to manipulate them, BushCo is determined to forge ahead and now they are in the business not only of telling appalling lies to kids to encourage them to ditch the condoms, but they have also spread the misinformation campaign to adults. Pandagon
... Unless you're a deluded fundie, it's patently ridiculous to believe that the entire nation can be held to one sexual standard--be straight, be abstinent until marriage, don't use contraception and be grateful for the dozen or so children that result, even if it drives you into poverty. And it's insulting the intelligence of those of us who don't obsess over the purity of teenage girls to be exposed to these appalling lies. Too bad the condom manufacturers didn't donate more campaign money to BushCo's campaign coffers, or maybe they could have had some lobbying power to get BushCo to cut the crap.
For those of us who recognized the Schiavo spectacle for what it was - an organized effort to impose the views of a subset of Christians who pine for the 19th century on the rest of us - there's welcome news:
Illinois Pushes Back ... The Gadflyer
~~~ You've probably heard about these "conscience clauses" that allow pharmacists to turn away prescriptions they find too modern-you know, for things like birth control that fly in the face of the religious right's barefoot and pregnant agenda. They're pushed under the rubric of 'pharmacists' rights,' furthering the Christian fundamentalist belief that they're some sort of oppressed minority.
As Adam Sonfield of the Alan Guttmacher Institute told the Washington Post:
"There are pharmacists who will only give birth control pills to a woman if she's married …. There are even cases of pharmacists holding prescriptions hostage, where they won't even transfer it to another pharmacy when time is of the essence."
Geez, we're talking about two-celled zygotes. What's next, the right-to-life for toenail clippings?
On Friday, Governor Rod Blagojevich--a Dem--ordered Illinois pharmaciies to just behave:
"Our regulation says that if a woman goes to a pharmacy with a prescription for birth control, the pharmacy or the pharmacist is not allowed to discriminate or to choose who he sells it to or who he doesn't sell it to," Mr. Blagojevich, a Democrat, said. "No delays. No hassles. No lectures." ~~~
(Click to view thumbnail)
SLATE
Good fortune. Don't let your meat loaf . . .
