W-a-a-a! Mommy, they're bashing us...

[onager]

But wait a second! These are CATHOLICS bashing the recently deceased CEO of Vatican Inc.!

I'm posting this here instead of the usual places so that it doesn't get drowned out...or removed...by the apologists and Professional Catholics.

First, Hans Kung, renegade priest under a Vatican order of silence for many years, writing in Der Spiegel. He tosses in a gratuitous slap at "fundamentalist atheists," but overall this is an incredible rant from someone inside the church:

The role the Polish pope played in helping bring about the collapse of the Soviet empire is also emphasized, and rightly so. But it's also heavily exaggerated by papal propagandists...

For the Catholic church, this pontificate, despite its positive aspects, has on the whole proven to be a great disappointment and, ultimately, a disaster...

Contrary to all intentions conveyed in the Second Vatican Council, the medieval Roman system, a power apparatus with totalitarian features, was restored through clever and ruthless personnel and academic policies...

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,348471,00.html

Next up, life-long Catholic Jim Connolly in "Counterpunch:"

Ignore the press hype about kissing the ground while globetrotting and recognizing Israel. Forget the ridiculous lie that John Paul II favored "human rights." Ignore the canned media obituary coverage that strives to show you that Wojtila (like Nixon, Reagan, Bob Hope, and (soon) Margaret Thatcher) were "great" international figures. Here is part of the damage wrought by this arch-reactionary and the regressive forces he unleashed in the Catholic Church...

http://counterpunch.org/connolly04052005.html

[beam me up scottie]

1. Is this the actor/comedian Jimmy Connolly?

" Karol Wojtila forced the best minds out of the Catholic Church, or at least to the extreme margins of the Church. Wojtila sanctified the baroque reproductive/sexual bugaboos that infest the Catholic Church while striving to ideologically lobotomize the Catholic clergy and laity"

This is an intelligent, well written, well researched piece by someone with an insider's knowledge of catholicism and the church.

This needs to be out there.
Where else can you post this? Not GD or the lounge, it's too lengthy for most poor-poor jp2 fans to read, so they would just crap all over it. Maybe GD Politics? Eds & Other Articles?

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. It's already in Editorials

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x118069

[beam me up scottie]

3. Thanks, just posted and kicked.

nt

[onager]

4. Thanks, muriel and beam!

I also posted the link to the Kung story in there.

[beam me up scottie]

5. Really good find.

nt

[Rhiannon12866]

6. Thanks, I will read this. It gives a different perspective than my article

I'm not proposing a debate, and signing off on this subject, since I am no more religious than you are, but I do think that Karol Wojtyla did a lot of good in the world, more than most, despite his reactionary hold on the Catholic Church. But he was interpreting Church law, not making it, more's the pity, since he was more liberal in his personal advice.:-(

John Paul II Played an Historic Role for Europe

By Hans-Dietrich Genscher

Without Karol Wojtyla the statesman, the freedom revolution of 1989 and 1990 would probably not have been as non-violent. With his eastern bloc politics and his moral authority, Pope John Paul II played a decisive role in bringing about the fall of the Iron Curtain.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989
When we think of the sweeping changes that took place in Europe and Germany in 1989 and 1990, one name should not be absent from the list of those celebrated for helping to bring down the Iron Curtain: that of Poland's Karol Wojtyla, the man who, as John Paul II, presided as head of the Catholic Church for more than 26 years.

At the time of his death, John Paul II was the last of the protagonists of the great historic changes characterizing the end of the 20th century who was still in office. By advocating on behalf of peaceful coexistence for the world's cultures and religions, he recognized, far more clearly than most people involved in the globalization discussion, the intellectual dimension of this revolution we call globalization, a revolution that is far more than just an economic process.

I am not in a position to speak to and assess his impact in and on behalf of the Catholic Church. As a Protestant and liberal, this is certainly an issue on which I could have plenty to say. But this pope's impact went well beyond the Catholic Church, making him one of the most important personalities of the 20th century.

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,350276,00.html

[Rhiannon12866]

7. Wow! I am just printing out your article and discovered it's from the

Same site as mine! Who would have guessed!? Is somebody messing with us, or what? LOL!:crazy:

[onager]

8. Why, it must be one of them...

...psychic convergences! As the Woo-Woo's like to say...

:crazy:

Thanks again! You're right, I think we agree on more than we disagree, in the grand scheme of things.

[Rhiannon12866]

9. That is very weird. It's strange, LOL! And I do agree.

We're both on DU, posting in the same forum, which we also chose to join, so I think we have a lot more in common than we have differences.:-)