MERGED AGAIN: ...Is the Pope Next? + Pope John Paul II + JP2...+Pope John Paul Dead!

[nbcrusader]

My guess is that in the next couple of weeks, we will see people across the political spectrum using the Pope's name to support their agenda.

 

[Irvine511]

i think you're probably right. Franklin Graham might win the award of "most shameless," however.

 

[Gosia]

Today, all young people gathered together in Cracow, Poland to pay tribute to pope. I was there. I do'nt know which words can really express what is happening in Poland. We are really "one". I hope I will have a chance to talk about it with Bono. I really want to tell him everything. His lyrics really came true...

 

[Macfistowannabe]

My guess is that in the next couple of weeks, we will see people across the political spectrum using the Pope's name to support their agenda.

My sentiments exactly.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

Franklin Graham is a complete nut. He'll never have the more universal appeal of Billy Graham (even though I dislike him too).

I'm not sure what's not to like about Billy Graham, but I get annoyed with Franklin's ongoing obsession with politics. Billy always had a way of avoiding them as much as possible.

 

[verte76]

My guess is that in the next couple of weeks, we will see people across the political spectrum using the Pope's name to support their agenda.

Yes. I wonder who else will jump on the bandwagon?

 

[deep]

Matt Drudge ask:


IS THE WORLD READY?


what a race baiter

 

[Teta040]

Well, we DO know that George W. Bush (who has traveled outside of the US approximately 2 times since 2000, maybe longer than that)--is going to the funeral.

Mustn't miss the opportunity to continue to pander shamelessly to his loyal Base, and shore up the illusion that the Catholic agenda is his agenda too (and not just the evangelical one) and make himself off as a great American Catholic leader. It will give the media some images to shove down our throats the next 20 yrs. And since the US media is little more than a propaganda tool at this point (and that includes, these days, the so-called "liberal" broadcast networks) to push Dubya's agenda (while continuing to treat anybody else in this country as if they were space aliens from Mars) they will lap it up like Pavlov dogs.

I can just see the coverage now, and hear the reverential words. I want to watch the funeral, having missed the news coverage on Sunday, but the prospect of the fawning elevation of the Advocate of Torture, the Dismantler of the U.S. Constitution and womens' rights, and the Purveyor of Empire into an inspirational leader and disciple of His Holiness' teachings will be more than I can stomach. To see the Talib-In-Chief become an "inspirational figure" in John Paul's tradition will ruin it for me.

I am a pretty tolerant person, but hypocrisy is one thing I can't stand. Even more than lies. And this man is very good at both.

 

[Teta040]

Irvine, MAcPhistowannabe, I just read your posts, and that's what I'm trying to say. Nobody else would think, in this time of sorrow, of exploiting the Passing so shamlessly. And whatever happened to CNN? Isn't it the media's fault with giving these people immediate and uniterrupted access to say their infalmmatory say? Why didn't they have an agressive commentator challenge his remarks and put him to the test? Cnn used to be the left-wing station, FOx the right. Equal to equal, 2 different cable stations with diff views. Now, I honestly can't tell one from the other.

It's the lack of public debate, the lack of anyone out there to seriously grill these fanatics and challenge them with hard and tough questions on the reasons for their single-minded tactics, that concerns me. As a Christian myself (though not Catholic) I can see their concerns, but their willingness to batter and destroy the cherished laws and institutions of this country that have stood for 229 yrs that frighten me. To hear them tell it, we are going to be headed for eternal hellfire NOW and America comes second, God first....

 

[Teta040]

PS SOrry to be speaking like this at such a solemn moment but a week from now, watch the funeral and see if what I say does not become true.

I am SICK and TIRED of seeing those with genuine concerns for the upholding of the Constitution of this country, and the advocates of womens' rights (which we are so quick to uphold in Afghanistan, etc), treated as if we were members of the Waffen SS on TV. Mocked, despised, scorend, riduculed--and alienated. All by those who have the money, who fund the media..and we know where THIER bread is buttered.

All right, I"ll leave this thread, and my bitterness now. But it will come true.

 

[Teta040]

PS.

Just thought I'd let non-Americans know...

that starting in 2006, when the next batch of textbooks is published, no health class in any American high school will have a textbook that mentions condoms, birth control, or STD's. No mention of these subjects will be found in any American textbook that is used in Health Class. Yes, that is right, you are not reading things. As part of its methods to combat the spread of AIDS, abstinence is tops on a list of methods, that includes 'Get plenty of rest' and "feel good about yourself." (I'm not making this up.) This is how we we according to school teachings, fight the growing threat of AIDS.

This is because of a law passed by the Evangelically-controlled Board of Ed in Texas, which has the funds that control the chief publishing house that handles American school textbooks. (Forgot how this goes exactly, but what goes for Texas, goes for all.) The only mention of these subujects will be in "supplements" that can be passed out to teachers if their districts approve of it. Dubya lobbied hard for this, and got it.

Welcome to the Brave New World of the Most Powerful Nation on Earth.

And the "Silent majority", in this instanhce, did not a damned thing. The TV media siad not a damned THING on this subject...it was snuck through in broad daylight, with no public debate invited whatsoever.

How the rest of the world can only LAUGH out LOUD at us....as we devolve back to the #(*$^# STONE AGE. This is beyond surreal, this is Huxleyan, and it has all come upon us so fast, SO FAST, that it is dizzying. There was no warning whatsoever. Is this REALLY HAPPENING in the US of A???? Officially the world's only Superpower???

If someday we have an AIDS epidemic that makes eyebrows in Africa slightly raise, then we'd only have DESERVED it, for failing to speak out on this, as well as endorsing policies that are so unrealistic. This is not the Middle Ages or the God-darned Renaiassance period, when Galielo was thrown into prison for arguing the earth goes around the sun. Yet becuase our state and local gov't are in the hands of the Taliban, and the rest fo the country is willing to be takewn in by the lies, this is waht we're getting.

..if they should not be so scared.

 

[hiphop]

in Italy people are already playing the lottery of who will be the next pope those crazy italians

 

[melon]

that starting in 2006, when the next batch of textbooks is published, no health class in any American high school will have a textbook that mentions condoms, birth control, or STD's. No mention of these subjects will be found in any American textbook that is used in Health Class. Yes, that is right, you are not reading things. As part of its methods to combat the spread of AIDS, abstinence is tops on a list of methods, that includes 'Get plenty of rest' and "feel good about yourself." (I'm not making this up.) This is how we we according to school teachings, fight the growing threat of AIDS.

Even Dr. Phil had someone on who encouraged comprehensive sex education with birth control and abstinence discussions.

Seeing the brats on that show made me fully convinced that abstinence-only education will fall on deaf ears. Of course, studies have shown this already.

Melon

 

[Teta040]

Currently, 6 out of 10 U.S, teens has sex in high school, and there is a growing trend of pre-teens catching and transmitting STD's.

This is simply not going to be solved by wagging your finger at kids and saying, "Don't have sex." American culture is saturated with it, and there is no way to hide even the child of evangelical parents from it. Not unless you send them to that university that forbids dancing.

Bush points to Uganda as a model to follow for the preaching of abstenence. I say:1) that while abstenence is the most aggressively taught method, it is not the only one; condoms, and birth control and such are available at clinics for adults and those who request them. Or were, anyway. Since Bush drastically cut foreign aid to clinics that have planned parenting materials, this has changed. I'd love to see Ugand'as stats from last yr.

Second, human nature is fickle. People have been forced to act in places like Uganda b/c one out of every 3 -5 people bet ages 15-45 is dying of AIDS. When nobody isleft alive in your village between those ages, and then it would make you think. People in America, kids esp, will laugh off all "illusions"about a crisis until it stares them in the face. AIDS is something that happens to people on MTV reality shows, not them. This is not condemn the kids per se; what is true for kids is TWICE as true for adults. It will take only a true crisis for people to wake up and see that at some point, "faith-based" attempts to change human behaviour simply cannotbe the only accepted way. Science has to ckme to the fore.

The last stanza of "Miracle Drug" comes to mind , as it has so many times these past 3 weeks..."I see Your Face in science AND medicine..."

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Man, Teta, that's scary. Seriously, I have no problem with people personally choosing to abstain from sex-that's their choice, I don't really care, but my god, we're living in the real world here-people will have sex, and yes, some of them will have it when they're teens. Do I personally think they're rather young to be doing that? Yes. But at the same time, making them out to be horrible people, shaming them, screaming about abstinence and abstinence only and refusing to educate them on safe sex methods and all that stuff won't, like you're pointing out, help the problem at all, it will only make it worse. By being completely honest with kids about safe sex and protection and the good and bad aspects of sex and all that stuff, that'll actually make them think a bit about whether or not that's all stuff they want to deal with right now. Just saying "Don't do it, it's bad!" won't do squat, because kids hear that and immediately go and do what it is they weren't supposed to do-it's called rebelling.

Angela

 

[lady luck]

in Italy people are already playing the lottery of who will be the next pope those crazy italians

It's not the only thing we're doing...
We are also standing on very long lines to pay respect to the pope...
... and praying a lot, not only in Roma, but in the whole Country.


Teta040 -- what you write sounds REALLY scaring to me!
I hope American parents will find a way to break the taboos and speak with their children about sex and how to protect themselves. Hope parents will have more common sense on it...

 

[hiphop]

It's not the only thing we're doing...
We are also standing on very long lines to pay respect to the pope...
... and praying a lot, not only in Roma, but in the whole Country.

I know I know Italy very well, and its so typical for you people to have that kind of serious respect, but also to make crazy things.. like the lottery. its just like Italians are.. I also know the nonnas will sit at their dinner of pasta con tutta la famiglia and discuss about the next pope

ah ya Italy.. hehe

 

[Teta040]

I stayed up allnight long and watched the whole thing (coverage began at 3 AM local time here), and several times wept. The thousnds of cheering under 25's that you could audibly hear moved me so much. That the Vatican let the people have their Big Moment of Farewell, and reporters in the crowd just letting us hear the clapping and cheering and chantng in so many languages. They talked aobut Solidarity a lot, and I got the chills thinking that someof those Solidarity flags that people were waving must have been actual historical artifacts, THE actual Solidarity banners they had saved from 23, 24 yrs ago. Not something made up for this occasion.

I got to thinking that an era had truly passed, that this was truly the last time we would ever be One. Maybe, the only time we had ever really been truly united. No secular leader, or even popular figure, has ever gotten such universal honor and respect (you can sure a lot of Moslems didn't mourn John Lennon; yet here they were at this man's funeral.)

My heart goes out, truly, to the people of Poland most. The poster who is from Poland here, I am in mourning with you. They have lost someone who was like the best kind of George Washington..he was, in a sense, the Father of the modern Polish state...and the best kind: a spiritual Father, more so than a secular one.

Truly, he was a giant among pygmies..among cold hearts and small minds.


Lady Luck: I want to ask you about one thing. On my broadcast one of the reporters mentioned that in recent days there have been articles in the Italian media about people already actually praying to John Paul as to a saint, asking for his intercession with the Father, for the cure of various ailments, and several are reporting cures. Is this true, and if so, can you point me in the direction of a link to one of these stories? (Hopefully an English version, but heck, maybe you could translate?)

Very curious. Grazie!

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

As a Catholic I didn't always agree w/ everything the Pope said, but what I did see of the funeral moved me, deeply. It was nice to hear about the good he accomplished and the personal encounters people had with him.

I was still always in awe of the man as a symbol and as a person, and what happened at/surrounding his funeral gives me hope.

I'll never forget the image of the book of Gospels atop his casket blowing in the wind.

 

[Pearl]

What I find so sad about the Pope's death is that there isn't a great leader, or anyone on the world scene to look up now. While I didn't agree with him on a lot of things, I felt you could look towards him when the world was in chaos. But now that he's gone, there's no one that the people could look up to.

That was clear to me while watching his funeral. There was not one person there - the presidents, the Prime Ministers, the dignitaries - who would receive a funeral like the Pope. They might get a grand ceremony and a lot of world leaders in attendance, but never that many and there won't be millions of people chanting for sainthood or waiting in line for hours to view his body. Not too many people look up to those world leaders with awe or would quake in their boots in their presence. Even the next pope won't get that, mainly because it would take a while to get used to the new one (especially for anyone who has never known any other pope). The world seems so empty now with Pope John Paul II.

 

[verte76]

What I find so sad about the Pope's death is that there isn't a great leader, or anyone on the world scene to look up now. While I didn't agree with him on a lot of things, I felt you could look towards him when the world was in chaos. But now that he's gone, there's no one that the people could look up to.

That was clear to me while watching his funeral. There was not one person there - the presidents, the Prime Ministers, the dignitaries - who would receive a funeral like the Pope. They might get a grand ceremony and a lot of world leaders in attendance, but never that many and there won't be millions of people chanting for sainthood or waiting in line for hours to view his body. Not too many people look up to those world leaders with awe or would quake in their boots in their presence. Even the next pope won't get that, mainly because it would take a while to get used to the new one (especially for anyone who has never known any other pope). The world seems so empty now with Pope John Paul II.

I agree. We're stuck with a bunch of second-rate leaders all over the world, there's no strong one that stands out. Pope John Paul was the only first-rate leader out there, and now he's gone. I converted to Catholicism sixteen years ago, and he was the only Pope I've ever had. No matter who the new Pope is, it's going to be strange, to say the least. It's going to be very hard for him, I certainly won't be jealous of him.

 

[melon]

I put my bet on the West no longer respecting the Papacy. People respected JPII automatically, because he was around so long. If this new guy is a small minded bigot, he won't have the comfort of nearly 30 years of a reign and North American Catholics, quite likely, will turn into European Catholics, who are pretty much all lapsed.

Melon

 

[anitram]

If this new guy is a small minded bigot, he won't have the comfort of nearly 30 years of a reign and North American Catholics, quite likely, will turn into European Catholics, who are pretty much all lapsed.

But the difference is that many European Catholics may be lapsed in some ways, they are also cultural Catholics which is something North Americans have little to no concept of. In many countries around the world to be Catholic is something that's not only cultural but also borderline an ethnic identity, because their history is so entwined with the Church. So that regardless of their lapses re: dogma, they will identify themselves openly as Catholics whereas North Americans who are not part of these minority groups lack that affiliation and will much more readily dissociate themselves from the Church entirely.

 

[nbcrusader]

A questionable way to remember the Pope

Protests planned for controversial cardinal's Mass

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- Several members of an advocacy group for victims of priest sexual abuse were flying to Rome Sunday to protest Cardinal Bernard Law's celebration of a Mass honoring the late Pope John Paul II, the organization's founder said Saturday night.

Law, former archbishop of Boston, is to say Mass Monday at St. Peter's Basilica.

Law is archpriest of Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore, where he presided on Sunday. Pope John Paul II appointed him to that post after Law was implicated in the sexual abuse scandal in Boston in 2002.

 

[melon]

When it came to the sex scandals, the Pope and the Vatican at-large were visibly annoyed by the press coverage and were seemingly only "apologetic" for being caught. I don't really think they're sorry at all, and giving Cardinal Law a promotion at the Vatican, rather than admonishing him, was their grossly arrogant way of showing it.

Melon

 

[verte76]

Cardinal Law is the archpriest at Santa Maria Maggiore? Horrors. That's a scandal. The guy was implicated for the sex scandals of the Boston Archdiocese. They should hide the guy in a basement.

 

[Teta040]

No kidding, Verte. Boston and NYC used to be THE first centers of Catholicism in the US, period, with some of its bigest and most historical churches in Boston (the Irish of course.) Now, b/c of him, three of those churches in Boston alone are closed and more are soon to follow. This scandal has cost more than $700 million ot the Vatican. That's nothing to sneeze at. No matter how vibrant and growing and the Soth is, Latin America, etc, it's still the wealtyh counries of the North, esp the Us, that while they have less Catholics, stillprovide the Vatican with a pretty hefty chunk of its funds. You'd think that they'd have to pay attention to us for that reason alone.

As to there being no world leader who can take JPIIs' place....I've been thinking on this lately. I'm a longtime fan, and as such "know" too much about him and therefore am NOT one of the fans who seem ready to canonize him...(I can perfectly understand and respect the swear-words in public, at this stage, heck, I'd do this once in while too), but from the admiration and respect he gets from so many world leaders and his ever growing clout in other ways, I have a suspicion that when Bono dies (and let that day be some 40 yrs away--at least), his funeral might attract the largest number of mourners since JP 2, "virtually" if not in person...right now, he seems to be the only world figure that commands universal respect, if not as a musician, than as force for good and a moral leader. You might not get well-wishes from a panaorama of ME leaders, but there are thr growing numbersof Moslem fans, and people in Bosnai etc who admire him. There are many more out there that deserve the honors more than he, as he would be the first to say, but they are not public figures. (Again, I'm not talking aobut personal morality; there are things we doubtless have no right to know. I'm talking about what we we do know.) Again, I'm not making a wildly hyperbolic statement here; I'm being dispassionate about this, and base it on fact. John Lennon, while loved and honored by many, continues to have as many detractors for his "Jesus" remark, even today; and Bob Marley, as equally deserving, had less political clout. Bono is a more
central" world figure and his stature can only grow more, if that is possible, if he keeps his promise to devote "the rest of his life" to his Great Work, as his musical career becomes less viable with age.

Please read this post carefully, and don't flame me. I am speaking of him strictly as a World Figure, and not just a musician, which it is easy for we fans to forget he has become. He passed that point some 3 yrs ago. When he finally leaves us, I suspect the eulogies will be more in tune with MLK, and less like John Lennon. Even though--as Bono would be the first to point out--MLK actually DID things, did far more. Compared to him, and others, Bono really has had to take no great risks. Seen in this light, he;s not done much of anything, really. So whay the brouhaha? Still, the world has a way of honoring those whom it chooses to, and we can debate just what tangible impact he really DID have, besides leaving us a great body of musical works.