NEWS: Pope John Paul II Passes Away

My favorite Catholic pic:

sorry to get back in this, but i felt oddly obligated.

who needs a letter when you have a whole book?

so, i guess it's okay if he says not to persecute them but calls them evil and lumps them together with nazis. yeah, nothing wrong with that.

no matter how liberal of a pope he was, he was still a pretty damn conservative person.

ironically, i'm listening to the who right now.

meet the new pope, same as the old pope.



[Edited on Apr 03, 2005 3:37PM]

I don't think anyone is attempting to equate the modern catholic church with the nazis (the medieval and renaissance church did burn a lot of jews... just for being jewish), but the modern church was mighty cozy with the facists and only slightly less so with the nazis just prior to WWII. Afraid of the communists, they allied themselves closely with franco in spain, mussolini in italy and a little less so with hitler. If you travel spain today and bother to venture into the little churches off the beaten path, there are numerous memorials to facists.

JPII cannonized the founder of Opus Dei, a conservative catholic organization. This gentleman was pretty openly facistic, good buddies with franco.

So by condemning him that makes you right? How are you any better if you're doing the same thing? Hate begats hate. This world is wrong in so many ways. I guess my problem is people adding to it. He is in no way a martyr, nor was he without "sin." But neither is anyone if you will allow me a philisophical point. There are good people out there that hold the same views, to some extent. They do not hate homosexuals, use contraception but call themselves Christians and Catholics. I'm not but I'm finding myself defending a dead religious leader because people think hating is cool. The church has problems. Government has problems. If there were legitimate points made (as many people here have done, y'know, actually quoting his words and following his deeds) it's one thing. It's a problem when someone just says "I'm glad he's dead." Have a point of view, but have reason or reasoning behind it, and be considerate. You hate the Pope. Do you hate the Catholics who read your slur? Because you've just insulted them as well.

He was human just like us. He had beliefs just like us. Certain people hate him for what he said. Should you be treated any different for what you say? Prove him wrong by being better than him in that regard. Tolerance and understanding.

Most people die of heart failure.

that's the second time somebody's credited somebody else for my statements in this discussion.

i'm just pointing it out, so shush. if there's a john paul the third, i wonder if he's going to die the same way. he was also the target of a botched assassination attempt, so we can't just pretend that heart failure is the only way popes die.
i think i'd rather die by heart failure, though.

[Edited on Apr 04, 2005 3:05AM]

"Condoms will not stop the spread of Aids" - Pope John Paul II

altogether now - JACKASS!

i honestly have no intention of offending anyone here, but despite his hard work, travels and militance, all of which are without a doubt admirable, he was very wrong about a number of very important things. i don't care that he was an icon for millions; so is Britney Spears.

John Paul the firsts death is still somewhat shrouded in mystery. Although it was officially attributed to heart failure, rumors of suicide and poisoning were rampant.

As for John Paul the second... yes, his heart stopping is what finally got him, but let's not forget the Parkinsons and severe UTI that lead up to his heart stopping.

Aside from all that, I'd like to post one of my favorite images of the Pope. I like it so much because it shows him as a real person. While I agree that he was a wonderful man he was just a man.

Elect a black female gay woman.

that's all...

I didn't say he was pro-gay marriage. I said he said that homosexuals shouldn't be persecuted.

I'm as flaming liberal as they come, and as I said, I'm not a Catholic, but criticizing the pope for being anti-gay marriage or anti-abortion strikes me as kind of ridiculous. Those beliefs are a part of the religion he belonged to. I'm not going to criticize a Muslim or a Therevada Buddhist for the belief that people shouldn't drink alcohol, no matter how much I dissagree. It's the religion that needs changing. Until that happens, there will never be a pro-choice pope.

looking at his statements, i doubt that the letter against persecution is genuine. in the selections from his book, he isn't just talking about gay marriage. no, he also says that GLBT is all a mental pathology. let me simplify that for you: mental disease or the negative deviation from normality of the mind. the idea that you can just pack that into the gay marriage issue illustrates the fact that i...only provided quotes pertaining to the topic.

in the book, he writes that god detests gay marriage union, that homosexuality is against natural law, and he argues against the idea of allowing gays to adopt.

how you could say that a man like that is fighting for unity and human rights goes straight over my head. you might not consider that persecution, but in my eyes, that's pretty hateful. you don't need to call it persecution for it to be that way. hell, you could even call it a hostile disagreement.

oh, but i'm not supposed to criticize him about it, right? hate to tell you this, but even if he was the pope, he's still a hateful person in some respects, and that just doesn't slide. no matter who you are, you're still prone to criticism regarding your hateful attitude. there are no exceptions. so what's so bad about criticizing a person for his mistakes or malcontent with people with different beliefs or actions.

and to say that they are beliefs pertaining to the religion, then i guess you don't think there are any gay christians or believers in jesus. like i've said before, i'm catholic, and i still think the pope got this part of the program wrong. this has little to do with religion but with hate and misunderstanding.

there's a difference between drinking alcohol and homosexuality, and the idea that religions don't allow the consumption of certain substances has nothing to do with civil rights and the mistreatment of different people, so don't compare the two.

the religion is fine, but the people are really screwing it up. take the sanctity of marriage for example. some people say that homosexuality is a scorn upon the sanctity of marriage, which is bullshit. divorce and domestic issues came long before the idea of gay marriages even came around.

if anything, the idea that there's nothing wrong with hating people because they're different or because you don't understand their culture is rather ridiculous.

i'd like to see that letter that you claim he wrote against peresecuting homosexuals, but until then i have a good 190 pages that tell me otherwise.

[Edited on Apr 05, 2005 11:04PM]