Home > The death of a Reactionary Pope

The death of a Reactionary Pope

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 7 April 2005
35 comments

Edito Religions-Beliefs

by Helen Back

THE MEDIA haze of kind words and rosy reminiscences about Pope John Paul II can’t change what the man was in real life—a hard-line right-winger who saw his mission as defending the most backward institutions and traditions of the Catholic Church.

Obituaries for John Paul—born Karol Wojtyla—mentioned his humble beginnings in Poland, then governed by a so-called communist government that repressed the Catholic Church. Named pope a few years before the Solidarnosc general strike of 10 million workers in Poland, John Paul was seen as an advocate of freedom and democracy—an image that the U.S. government and its Cold War allies happily promoted.

Less talked about was how John Paul provided Washington with a trump card against the development of what was known as “liberation theology” in Latin America—where people associated with the church, including leading priests and bishops, championed the struggles of workers and the poor.

The pope occasionally criticized U.S. imperialist ventures, like the recent invasion of Iraq. But he was always far more an ally than opponent, and he used his quarter-century reign to reassert the Vatican’s role as a bastion of reaction.

In church doctrine, John Paul was mainly known for halting the moderate reforms initiated by the Second Vatican Council—and insisting on the most conservative possible attitude on such questions as abortion and birth control.

The pope cracked down on dissenters from the church’s anti-choice stance. Even contraception remained beyond the pale—the equivalent of genocide, in the Pope’s fundamentalist view. For John Paul, sex was only allowed between a husband and wife, and then solely for the purposes of procreation. Obviously, this “papal teaching” is widely ignored among even faithful Catholics, but it was typical of John Paul’s cobwebbed views.

Among the predecessors he looked to most was Pope Pius IX, a megalomaniac who reigned during the 19th century, and whose Syllabus of Errors condemned democracy, freedom of the press and the belief in human progress.

John Paul was a longtime supporter of the secretive Opus Dei movement, with its rituals of corporal mortification and ties to European fascists—and the less well-known Legion of Christ, another ultra-conservative and equally cult-like organization that believes most Catholics have deserted the faith. All the pundits and academic experts who talk about the backwardness of Islam should take another look at the strange practices and proscriptions associated with Catholicism.

When the U.S. church was exposed for harboring sexual predators among its priests, John Paul’s Vatican helped organize the cover-up, refusing to admit that anything about the workings of the church contributed to the scandal. Even a right-winger like former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, a member of the National Review Board of Catholic Lay People, which authored one report on the priest scandal, was forced to resign after he compared the Church hierarchy’s methods of concealing sexual abuse to those of La Cosa Nostra.

Karl Marx wrote that religion is “the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.” For most followers, Christianity and Catholicism offer comfort in an unjust world. Church figures like the pope are associated with a system of ideas that helps people cope in the here and now, and gives them hope of a better world in the afterlife. That’s why so many Catholics can claim to be believers, even while living lives that are wholly opposed to the church’s musty dogma on issues like sexuality.

Likewise, some social activists take inspiration from their Catholicism—with its Biblical injunctions to stand up for the downtrodden—in organizing against war and for social justice.

But as an institution, the Catholic Church has always been on the side of the exploiters and oppressors—as probably the richest and most powerful institution throughout the last millennium, and a chief prop of an unjust system to this day. From the Crusades to conquer Muslim lands, to the Inquisition that tortured Jews and dissenters, to collaborating with Nazis during the Holocaust, the Catholic Church hierarchy has maintained itself by accommodating to the ruling class of the day.

John Paul II stood squarely in that tradition. He doesn’t deserve to be remembered as a hero who opposed tyranny, but as a reactionary who did his utmost to preserve an institution built on bigotry, intolerance and injustice.

Forum posts

  • stop trying to think helen, you’re not good at it.

  • He was an hypocratic old men. Unforgettable the moment when he toke the American Freedom medal from George Murder Bush. Even in death he give a plattform for a bunch of murders: Bush, Clinton, father Bush and Rice.
    You will burn in hell Wojtyla.

    • In his anti condom stance he has condemned thousands if not millions to an agonising death in Africa and other parts of the developing world through AIDS. Christ would be most unhappy at the deification of one mere mortal, and the gathering of all those rich and powerful evil scumbags in Rome to pay homage to a ’spiritual’endorser of their global crimes. As it said in the bible ’the mighty shall fall and the meek shall inherit the earth’ -not that i believe that crap but you’d think that someone like the pope should...

    • Consistency has never been a strong point of the left or leftists. You’re an atheist, remember?
      If you are right, John Paul is going to the same uncreated, anihilative nothingness that waits for you. If he was right YOU are the one who will be occupying a cubicle in hell and he will be in heaven praying for your crispy soul.

    • Reality check for overheated leftists.............
      Condoms have been proven to be completely ineffictive in preventing the spread of the AIDs virus, in that the virus transmittors are smaller than the pores in the latex.
      If condoms don’t work, that leaves.......abstinance?
      I wonder where the Pope stood on abstinance?

    • This is disinformation at its worst. Condoms DO protect against the AIDS virus and it is a proven fact. The HIV rate among homosexual men has gone WAY down due to use of condoms and professional prostitutes always demand that their Johns use them because they know this..... you are just an ignorant misinformed bigot and should be ashamed of yourself for spreading lies to satisfy your right-wing political and fanatical religious quirks, and furthermore you do not belong here among educated people discussing issues based on facts, you should go to the GOP sites r try the military or Catholic websites, there are a million of them and they will all reinforce your dangerous disinformation talking points.

    • Snakes talk and pigs fly and a little man named Jesus lives in the sky.

    • The HIV infection rate among homosexuals, regrettably, has not gone down. They are being kept alive, and sodomitically active via the use of drug cocktails. This abuse of the cocktails has bred drug resistant and sped up mutated varieties of the disease which can kill within months of the initial infection. This is your world. You have created it. God help you.

    • WATCHING AND LISTENING TO THE ANTICS OF THE LEFT IS ENOUGH TO CONVINCE ONE THAT "SNAKES TALK AND PIGS FLY", but Jesus Christ does not neccessarily "live in the sky", He lives in the hearts and souls of everyone who calls on His Name.

    • You wish. But then you are like I said an ignorant bigot who refuses to accept the truth. Like evolution which is accepted by the rest of the "educated" world who do not believe the world is flat, everyone else with a real education (not stupid rednecks) know that condoms are a good reliable way to prevent unwanted pregnancies and STDs like HIV, etc., but go ahead and believe nonsense you right-wing bigots like to believe fantasy its all you have.

    • How do you know what "lefties" believe??? Do you really think YOU know what everyone else believes and that it is all within your narrow minded acceptance scope? You religious fanatics are so stuck on yourselves that you are laughable. Your limited mind can not grasp the idea that there are millions of people who do not for a moment accept your denifition of right (God) and wrong (Devil), you actually think everyone agrees with your tenants that this is all there is. Somewhere in your little narrow universe you got stunted, therefore, you assume everyone somehow believes the same made up stories that you do. The hypocracy and down right unbelievable notions of your religions are so blatant and intrusive as to be throughly offensive, yet, you presume to force your laughable beliefs upon everyone. Why is this? What right do you claim is your’s to do this? I have noticed that all of you do it, is it something you learn? Or is it part of your agreement with your church that you must fulfill? I think this such an odd behavior that I can not help but wonder. I can only imagine knowing how corrupt and self serving (history all says so) your religious organizations are that it is a requirement for a place on the bus to heaven, kind of a recruitment thing (?)

    • Ignorance is not something of which to be proud. Perhaps you think all of the Pope’s pronouncements should be accepted.... In which case, he had some pretty damning statements to make about capitalism (expecially the US variety) and about the war in Iraq (which he opposed without equivocation).

      However, bearing in mind the above you might wish to consider the following regarding the Pope’s views on sexuality. "If he don’t play the game.... he don’t make the rules".

      Okay?

    • Let’s keep it simple..... Sexuality? The Pope’s position should be very clear....
      IF YOU DON’T PLAY THE GAME..... YOU DON’T GET TO MAKE THE RULES.

    • First, learn how to spell. Second, I will pray for you.

    • Your only argument is that you are "educated". From what I’ve gathered, you’ve only learned how to use "big" words. Stop being so closed minded. I’m praying for you

    • Learn not to be so brainwashed.

  • An excessive unthoughtfull comment by someone who obviously didn’t stop long enough to think. The Church’s Social Doctrine goes further than any progammes of so-called left parties in its defence of poor and working people. A defence based on strict moral grounds as well as on solidarity. Many catholics may ignore that doctrine, but it was consistently defended by John Paul II. The Pope’s views on sexuality and abortion are fundamental moral standpoints that are immensilly important to all of us, catholic or atheist. But the Church’s positions never stopped anyone from doing what their consciences told them to do. No catholic ever stopped from using contraception because of the Church’s rulings. No catholic ever stopped from performing an abortion just because of the Pope. Catholics are adults who act in accordance to their consciences. The Church’s rulings are simply guidance that they may choose to obey or not. But no catholic would deny the validity of the Chuch’s moral views. Without those views the world would be a much more unpleasant place.

    • AMEN. HALLELUJAH.

    • JPII was instrumental in hiding the pedophiles in the church and when it all came crashing down, he dictated that these priests should all be given another chance instead of being thrown out and prosecuted is that what you ean about strict moral ground?

    • Not knowing any history really helps you prove a point, NOT. Social Security is a leftist program, as is most of the government sponsored programs in recent history since WW I, medicare/medicade was pushed through by Lyndon Johnson, F.D.R. came to the aid of the common people after the great depression, for all of the uneducated reading this, F.D.R. was a democrat (leftist). The Equal Rights Ammendment was a democrat sponsored piece of legislation, defeated by the Republicans who want to keep women down. Under Kennedy and with his support and Johnson’s the Civil Rights movement came to be possible and actually came about. The corporate big business greed on the right has NEVER tried to help the common working poor or women or people of color of this country, the very idea is against their own interests. The minimum wage and living wage are two democrat sponsored ideas that always get 100% resistence from the religious right who always claim to be compassionate and kind to the poor while they do everything in their power to keep them poor and down. The minimum wage issue was recently defeated by the republicans, the same ones who think C.E.O.s should make a few million more each year even when the companies are going broke. So who are you trying to shit?

    • I am not a Catholic; I suppose I’d follow the church teachings if I’d been born a Catholic.

      Religion has certain responsibilities when passed on hereditarily. Nobody agrees to be a Catholic as a baby. Sunday school is mandatory for many Catholics, as is church attendance.

      But "Free Will" Baptists will tell you that no one can come to Christ except through submission to His will, which is a deliberate act by a consenting adult. Adults can choose from a broad variety of churches that vary in their interpretation of Christian belief, faith and practice. This is quite unlike children—since adult believers come to their point of view based on their independent conclusions.

      Most churches are lazy in attracting new believers out of faith, and would rather coast on the children of their congregations—a captive audience. Perhaps this lazy approach has led to far greater dangers than if a church were forced to justify itself and seek new believers based on its merits.

      Is all involuntary church service bad? No, but missing is the key spiritual element: the choice to serve Christ. Many good things are accomplished by Christian churches, even if participants are acting more out of a sense of obligation than volunteerism. Yet nothing of value can be accomplished if people don’t come to Christ in humility and beg for His mercy, and in exchange do righteous deeds out of a heartfelt commitment to the Word.

      Children are the victims of one of the most despicable acts of the church: sexual abuse by clergy. Made worse are the efforts to stymie and soften criticism that the church did too little to stop abuse (evidenced by the years on end of abuse of the same victims.) How much did the pope and church leadership know? Enough to at least try to stop the problem. The same reactionary attitutude pervades the use of condoms: the AIDS epidemic is a huge killer and the church denies the source of the problem—unprotected sex—and decries condom use. This dogmatic solution ignores the present problem and helps perpetuate it and, like the sex scandals, lets the problem worsen over time. This proves much of the Catholic church is more devoted to preserving the status quo and its medieval chicanery than meeting the urgent needs of a modern society.

      No wonder the church is losing to evangelicals in Africa and other soft spots. Hopefully they will rely less on conscripted children and more on willing converts, which should help focus on the only message that matters: of a merciful Christ working to prevent the spread of AIDS through the use of condoms.

      Finally, the Pope is not godly. It’s heresy to worship Christ through the body of man, as well as idolatry. Somehow the role Paul played usurped the early Christians view of a community-based church, and led to the creation of a very hierarchical Roman-style institution (Vatican) with its god-king ruler (Pope).

    • I second that Amen!

  • Well said. Those who refuse to see the truth about the Vatican fool themselves, the Roman Catholic Church is corrupt - all you have to do is open your eyes and your mind - this Pope gave refuge to Cardinal Law of Boston who knew well of the molestation of children by priests, and who sent those child-rapists from parish to parish never warning the congregation of what might happen to the children. It is a corrupt Church, the world knows it - regardless of how much those pro-Pope comments above try to defend it. I’d like to see one of those pro-Pope people get molested or their children raped by a priest. To those who refuse to see the truth: I hope you dream about the abuse, over and over again and that you carry the images of children at the moment of abuse with you every moment of your waking life as well.

    • The corruption in the church is due entirely to [leftist] homosexuals who lie their way through seminary, who lie to their parishes, who lie to their superiors, [who would lie even to God if they could] and use the position they hold to stalk innocent naieve young men.

    • What a joke, I just read where a long time GOP leader "married" his gay lover now that he has safely seen Bush back into office. Then there is Jeff/Jim Gurckett/Gannon who had access to the White house and Bush and was part of the the GOP websites as well as 3 or 4 of his own advertising his "services" at $200 per hour or 2thousand per weekend "8 inch cut on top" militarystud.com and was a Bush friend and plant in the news conferences to ask derogatory questions about the democrats, these are just 2 of the many, including the govenor who resigned when it was revealed that he had funneled tax money to hush his lover. Now if I am not mistaken, republicans claim to be right wing, granted they are a bunch of hypocrites and liars, but everyone of them as right wing conservatives and church goers. I have read where Bush the former cheerleader is also a closet gay, I guess you think he is a "lefty".

    • I’m convinced that the pope defenders would like their children to be raped by the priests. Like that nut case that sent his little boy into Terry Schiavo’s hospice with water and watched him get arrested because of his Catholic faith who then it turns out has molested children himself and is a registered child rapist....a seemingly common thing among the members of that organization from top to bottom.

    • The corruption in the church is due to leftist homosexuals ?.....Do you really believe that the worlds biggest pedophile ring could have operated without the leaders being part of this? Because if you do, you are more gullible than I thought possible. JP himself when he finally came out of self imposed denial about the pedophile practices of "his" church said that these priests needed to be given another chance. Look at Cardinal Law, who should have gone to jail, and would have if he had been an ordinary citizen, was given the honor of burying JP, this is like taking a metal from Bush only worse because these fleshy old fart bags are so disgusting. Can you imagine how these little children felt having one of these low life monsters violating them? Can you imagine how they feel when they see no remorse from this sex crazed bunch of old men, who dress weird, and act weird, and then wallow in self agrandizment and hypocracy? WHO COULD KNOW ALL OF THIS AND STILL BELONG? AND WHAT IS YOUR POINT IN TRYING TO PIN THIS ON ANYONE IN POLITICAL LIFE? Or you just in denial too?

    • Oh dear. To miss the point quite so spectacularly and with such screaming bigotry. Is your God a God of love or hate? I’ve got some really bad news for the left/right, religious/atheist debate. Jesus was a communist. Sorry, but there you go. His followers were expected to abandon material possessions and live in common. When asked by a rich young man if he could follow Jesus he was told to give up his wealth first. I also seem to remember something about throwing money lenders out of a temple. And before you all reach for your Bibles and start yelling "eye for an eye", "Look it says bad things about homosexuals here...." etc, then please remember that all the negative, vengeful God stuff comes from the "Old" not "New Testament" while Jesus replaced the commandments with "Love one another" as the first rule above all others. You might also like to ponder the fact that adulterers should be stoned to death, you must give up those feelings you have for your neighbours ox and that the lending of money with interest leads straight to hell..... That’s a bit of a blow for all those western (and presumably) Christian run banks out there. John Paul II made some terrible decisions - probably because he was human. Some may be forgiven easily, others with much more difficulty but to suggest that the problems of the church rest with some bizarre idea that it’s evil homosexuals sneaking in and then corrupting everything else is very, very disturbing. Perhaps, as Jesus advised, we might be better looking at that beam in our own eye before attacking the splinter in the eyes of others.... and yes, I include myself in that.

    • Can you please explain the rather silly term "leftist" homosexual? It’s irrelevant, stupid and entirely at odds with any reasonable interpretation of the facts. The right wing plays with such notions because it means easy votes from the terminally unthinking. Meanwhile they actually aren’t any different in sexual preference than the rest of the population. Politics is not a sexual choice.

  • u saying bad stuff about my bud pope jp 2

    • Are all Catholics closet pervert queers? The evidence is mounting that this is probably the case.

    • Why do you right wingers/Catholic bashers/gay bashers have to wear STUPID like a badge?. Have you never heard of tolerance, kindness, charity.... the sort of things Christianity is supposed to be about? I appreciate that the lack of basic knowledge you seem to have may be frustrating for you but you would perhaps be better to spend a little of your time looking for facts before you let your mouths go quite so freely..... Never forget that empty vessels make the most noise. You may also like to seek medical treatment for that terrible over production of bile. Come on people, smile and lighten up a bit. It can’t be a happy life spitting insults at everyone all day just because you watch too much Fox news.

  • Hello,

    The Catholic Church will approve the use of condoms for preventing pregnancy and disease transmission when it approves the use of vomit bags for preventing obesity.

    Please read a good explanation of Catholic teaching regarding human, not canine, equine or bovine, sexuality. Here are some books I recommend.

    "Love and Responsibility" by Carol Wojtyla (later Pope John Paul II);

    "Theology of the Body" by Pope John Paul II;

    "Why Humanae Vitae Was Right" edited by Janet E. Smith; and

    "Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later" by Janet E. Smith

    And here is a web site to get you started toward understanding Natural Family Planning, which differs from artificial contraception and is Catholic Church-approved for preventing or achieving pregnancy (please don’t confuse and dismiss methods such as the Creighton Method or the Billings Method with the older and obsolete Rhythm Method): The Couple to Couple League ( http://www.ccli.org/ ).

    Peace out,

    Irenaeus

    • The Catholic Church will approve condom use when the priests stop butt fucking the little boys.

    • You really seem fixated on anal sex. Is there room in your brain for anything else?