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Knife wrote:The buck stops here. It works against Bushy boy, why not JPII? Sure the Catholic Church is a huge beuracracy, doesn't give him a pass for not going against it.

I would give him a personal pass on the justification that he probably didn't know about it until he saw it on the news. The pedophiles were shuttled around by the Bishops to keep the secret, I sincerely doubt they sent a message up the hierarchy stating that "I'm making sure this child-rapist gets away with it, boss."

So, him not taking a stand on something, because the beuracracy would oppose him, makes him great because?

I never said he was great--rather the opposite.

Fucking kids is wrong, by Christian standards and every other. Gay bashing is wrong and only supported by Thin Biblical scripture.

"If a man has sex with a man in same way as with a woman, they have committed an abomination. They are certainly to be put to death."
--Leviticus 20:13

I would call that rather clear. Technically speaking, the murder of gays is officially mandated by the bible, just as is the murder of insolent children, people engaged in incest, and a shitload of other things.

If he wanted to spend the 'political capital' on it, he could have. He isn't a despot in the 'Church' but he has considerable power and popular support. He didn't use it.

The popular support for making homosexuality "okay" doesn't obtain. Pro-gay attitudes are only really big in the United States and a few countries in Europe. The vast majority of Catholics would definitely not support a Papal Bull removing homosexuality as a sin.

On the subject of leadership, maintenance of the status quo should never be described as effective leadership. A rudderless ship will continue in its current direction.

Darth Wong wrote:On the subject of leadership, maintenance of the status quo should never be described as effective leadership. A rudderless ship will continue in its current direction.

As I said, he was better than most popes. I would call the majority of popes "actively bad."

Pablo Sanchez wrote:
I would give him a personal pass on the justification that he probably didn't know about it until he saw it on the news. The pedophiles were shuttled around by the Bishops to keep the secret, I sincerely doubt they sent a message up the hierarchy stating that "I'm making sure this child-rapist gets away with it, boss."

The resulting situation after such facts were know is still unacceptable. He's the head dog, he takes the licking. He refused by proxy to make a hard policy about these fuckers.

I never said he was great--rather the opposite.

General statment, not necessarily to you.

"If a man has sex with a man in same way as with a woman, they have committed an abomination. They are certainly to be put to death."
--Leviticus 20:13

I notice that eating Lobster and Crab is also an 'Abomination' yet fail to see the massive campaign against Red Lobster. There is no 'Abomination table' in the appendix of the Bible that I'm aware of. Why is 'gay's' a bigger Abmomination than the Abomination of eating crab/lobster and such?

Did JPII come out against crab? Where is the book saying that crab eaters are the 'new theology of evil'?

I would call that rather clear. Technically speaking, the murder of gays is officially mandated by the bible, just as is the murder of insolent children, people engaged in incest, and a shitload of other things.

See above.

The popular support for making homosexuality "okay" doesn't obtain. Pro-gay attitudes are only really big in the United States and a few countries in Europe. The vast majority of Catholics would definitely not support a Papal Bull removing homosexuality as a sin.

Again, so the fact that there is some opposition, makes him innocent from trying, why?[/quote]

Straha wrote:
Gregory was one of the Popes in the Schism I mentioned, and Benedict didn't abdicate for money... he was forced out of office, and then back in, and then back out, and then back. If I recall correctly he was 11 when he was appointed.

He sold the office to Greg #6.

The biggest argument for why JPII dragged the Catholic Church backwards is a simple glance at the list of people he appointed. All of them are arch-conservative bigots. Almost all of the younger cardonals, a lot of archbishops and bishops. He made damn sure that his regressive social values regarding gays, women in the church and contraception and abortion would be cemented for decades to come.

As for JPII fighting the Nazis, hardly. He worked in a Nazi chemical factory for most of the war, and saw a lot of his weaker coworkers sent to the death camps, but he hardly did anything noteworthy during the war. This little bit was in this morning's newspaper, no less. As for fighting against communism, yes, he did that, but even without his intervention, the Soviet model of communism that was forced on Eastern Europe would have collapsed of its own impossibility.

All told, the evil his favored policies have caused and continue to cause far outweigh the good things he has done, which is why I see no reason to respect him. Doesn't mean I will go out of my way to attack the man at every turn either, but his death is objectively no loss for humanity.

Edi

Since I was lambasted for daring to express my opinion in the original "The Pope is dead" thread (before it was offically changed to a morning thread) I repeat here what I said there:

Mange the Swede wrote:
Well, I'm not catholic and I didn't share some of his views, he believed in what he was doing. May he rest in peace.

So did Hitler and Stalin- the fact that "he believed in what he was doing" does not change the fact that what he believed was fundamentally irrational and that hese beliefs have caused a great deal of harm the world over.

To that I add:

John Paul II fulfilled his obligations as Pope "well"- but that does not change the fact that by fulfilling this obligation he advanced the cause of irrationality across the globe. Millions are still paying the price of this irrationality- and will continue to pay for decades, if not centuries, to come. Despite what other may claim, I say him take no actions that were "great" or "brave" during his tenure- all he did was faithfully (aka mindlessly) follow irrational religous dogma.

John Paul- you had all the inherint moral authority of a tarot card reader. I'll miss you as much as one.

I think part of some peoples' disagreement over the "moral legacy" of the Pope is due to a basic difference of opinion over the nature of morality. As one who believes in social responsibilities, I insist that he who occupies a great office has a commensurately great responsibility to actively do good things and actively prevent bad things (particularly those that are committed by his organization). That is, after all, a logical extension of the engineering code of ethics.

However, many people believe that one can only be bad if one actively does bad things; anything else, no matter how negligent, does not constitute immorality. To those people, it is laughable and perhaps insane to call the Pope a bad man.

Knife wrote:I notice that eating Lobster and Crab is also an 'Abomination' yet fail to see the massive campaign against Red Lobster. There is no 'Abomination table' in the appendix of the Bible that I'm aware of. Why is 'gay's' a bigger Abmomination than the Abomination of eating crab/lobster and such?

That isn't the point I'm arguing--you said the Biblical justification for gash-bashing was "thin," I demonstrated that it was not.

Homosexuality is clearly a greater abomination than violating the dietary laws because it is punishable by death. All of the dietary laws but one (drinking the blood of animals and birds) merely result in the sinner becoming "unclean." A Hebrew could eat a spider and not be killed, because not all abominations are equal.

Again, so the fact that there is some opposition, makes him innocent from trying, why?

Evil by omission only holds when you could have done the thing. The Pope cannot actually wave a hand and change the policy. It doesn't work that way, any more than it so functioned for someone like Peter the Great or Louis XIV. It's possible for an absolute ruler to change some things (make everyone shave his beard, or move to Versailles) but other things are out of reach (abolishing the noble class). The Pope isn't even quite an absolute ruler.

Pablo Sanchez wrote:Evil by omission only holds when you could have done the thing.

Or when you could have at least tried. If one makes no effort at all, it is presumptuous to assume that he would have made it happen were it possible.

Darth Wong wrote:I think part of some peoples' disagreement over the "moral legacy" of the Pope is due to a basic difference of opinion over the nature of morality.

Yes- but you're splitting it too simply. There are splits on the religious level as well on a secular level- added to that is that is that many people operate on a mixture between the two.

As one who believes in social responsibilities, I insist that he who occupies a great office has a commensurately great responsibility to actively do good things and actively prevent bad things (particularly those that are committed by his organization). That is, after all, a logical extension of the engineering code of ethics.

However, many people believe that one can only be bad if one actively does bad things; anything else, no matter how negligent, does not constitute immorality. To those people, it is laughable and perhaps insane to call the Pope a bad man.

Even granting your basic assumptions you are incorrect; there are actions, that the Pope took, that the latter group can consider being "actively bad".

Pablo Sanchez wrote:"If a man has sex with a man in same way as with a woman, they have committed an abomination. They are certainly to be put to death."
--Leviticus 20:13

He needs to do it a different way.

Evil by omission only holds when you could have done the thing. The Pope cannot actually wave a hand and change the policy. It doesn't work that way, any more than it so functioned for someone like Peter the Great or Louis XIV. It's possible for an absolute ruler to change some things (make everyone shave his beard, or move to Versailles) but other things are out of reach (abolishing the noble class). The Pope isn't even quite an absolute ruler.

Except that the Pope is "God's voice on Earth". If the Pope came out and publicaly said "God told me last night that the part of the OT that says Gay's should be executed no long applies" the rest of the Catholic Church could do jack shit- since they would be disagreeing with "God" and not merely an interpretation of the Bible.

BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:

Evil by omission only holds when you could have done the thing. The Pope cannot actually wave a hand and change the policy. It doesn't work that way, any more than it so functioned for someone like Peter the Great or Louis XIV. It's possible for an absolute ruler to change some things (make everyone shave his beard, or move to Versailles) but other things are out of reach (abolishing the noble class). The Pope isn't even quite an absolute ruler.

Except that the Pope is "God's voice on Earth". If the Pope came out and publicaly said "God told me last night that the part of the OT that says Gay's should be executed no long applies" the rest of the Catholic Church could do jack shit- since they would be disagreeing with "God" and not merely an interpretation of the Bible.

Such a statement would require the Pope to speak with his infallible authority, i.e. ex cathedra. In order to do so, the majority of Catholics must agree on the issue, and they do not.

Durandal wrote:

BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:

Evil by omission only holds when you could have done the thing. The Pope cannot actually wave a hand and change the policy. It doesn't work that way, any more than it so functioned for someone like Peter the Great or Louis XIV. It's possible for an absolute ruler to change some things (make everyone shave his beard, or move to Versailles) but other things are out of reach (abolishing the noble class). The Pope isn't even quite an absolute ruler.

Except that the Pope is "God's voice on Earth". If the Pope came out and publicaly said "God told me last night that the part of the OT that says Gay's should be executed no long applies" the rest of the Catholic Church could do jack shit- since they would be disagreeing with "God" and not merely an interpretation of the Bible.

Such a statement would require the Pope to speak with his infallible authority, i.e. ex cathedra. In order to do so, the majority of Catholics must agree on the issue, and they do not.

Part of being Catholic is following the word of the Pope when he speaks "ex cathedra". If you say he's full of shit when he does this- your not Catholic anymore, your some branch of Protestant. This issue was decided about 400 years ago.

Even if the Pope is not speaking ex-cathedra in matters of doctrine, his statements still carry great weight and can determine the direction an organisation even as ponderous as the Catholic Church can go in. His position gives him an assumed moral authority and therefore great influence. He used this influcence to:

• declare that homosexuality was part of an "ideology of evil"

• oppose the use of condoms and the teaching of accurate sex education in Africa during a time when the continent is being ravaged by the twin scourges of overpopulation and the AIDS pandemic

• to essentially give pedophiles within the priesthood a free pass by refusing to issue a condemnation against them and to reiterate that the Church could more or less continue to police itself

• to declare that women can never be equal with men in the stewardship of the Church

Now while the fourth point might be part-and-parcel with the traditionalist bullshit of the Church, the other three constitute the most obvious black marks against John Paul II's papacy given that millions of lives are affected, as well as the credibility of the Church.

I'm not exactly sure whcih thread to put this in. But Its not exactly a simple condolence so I'll put it here. Its a very well written artical by the Guardian. I'm sure we'll have plenty of summery articles. I don't usualy look at this website, but I got this link sent. But it is interesting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0, ... 64,00.html

What a week. Johnny Cochrane dead. The pope dead. Terry Schiavo finally got peace. Now if only Falwell would also carck it.

And the amazement of it all is that they weren't already dead long ago.

the actual text:

Leviticus 20:13 wrote:If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

So You'll just have to do it standing up. Furthermore, due to obvious differences in plumbing, a man cant lie with a man as he lieth with a woman, so unless you find a man with a vagina, you're all set!

Col. Crackpot wrote:the actual text:

Leviticus 20:13 wrote:If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

So You'll just have to do it standing up. Furthermore, due to obvious differences in plumbing, a man cant lie with a man as he lieth with a woman, so unless you find a man with a vagina, you're all set!

Actually from experience you can. If the man puts his legs over you shoulders and lifts his arse up a put you can do something very similar to missionary.

My opnion is fuck JP2. It never fails to amazme me how some fuckers grow blinkers as soon as there is a warm corpse. If he wanted to be a good Pope he shpuld have made changes. Tradition is, IMHO, a fallacy, the only real tradidion is they every thing will eventually change. The Pope had the power to change things and didn't. The nicest thing i can say is that Ian Paisley called him the Anti-Christ, and thats the only positive thing i can say about him.

Condoms help spread HIV and AIDS, let's canonise those who died from AIDS because they refused to wear evil condoms!

Since this is the Pope-bashing thread it may be a good place to ask about the Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal. As an American I saw a lot of news about it, but I've heard little about similar problems in other countries. Is the mismanagement of abusive priests uniquely North American, or have similar scandals occured worldwide? None of the news coverage I can find details anything outside of America and Canada.

Jew wrote:Since this is the Pope-bashing thread it may be a good place to ask about the Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal. As an American I saw a lot of news about it, but I've heard little about similar problems in other countries. Is the mismanagement of abusive priests uniquely North American, or have similar scandals occured worldwide? None of the news coverage I can find details anything outside of America and Canada.

It's been widely reported in America and Canada, but these are countries where people feel more free to come forward with their allegations. In South America where the church runs the society, it would be extremely difficult to come forward.

In any case, when the Americans proposed a "zero tolerance" rule on pedophile priests, the Vatican disagreed. That's the most damning thing about the child sex-abuse scandal; why on Earth would they disagree that there should be a zero-tolerance rule on child sex abuse in the priesthood?

I probably hope in vain that the next pope won´t we a worthless fucker like the recently deceased one.