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

[tiny dancer]

Melon, Anthony... I kindly ask you to save your criticism until later this week.

I respect your disagreement and consider you smart, not judgmental people. But this is indeed a very sad day for us Catholics and I wanted to read in this forum some support for a leader. You may like him or not, but that is what he was.

And please note that I am not trying to censor you or anything. This is just too special of a moment for many of us.

Thanks.

P.

Thank you for posting this U2@NYC. Indeed it is a very sad day for us Catholics.

 

[verte76]

Thank you for posting this U2@NYC. Indeed it is a very sad day for us Catholics.

Yes, it is, I'm really shaken up and upset. This is hard to take. I just came from mass at my church, and will be attending a Monday night memorial mass at the church. I can't say whether or not I'm a good Catholic, but I'm Catholic.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

s to all the Catholics on this board.

Angela

 

[Anthony]

Your request is noted, and will be respected. However, as a practicing Catholic myself I feel I must explain - I pray that the man found peace and is with God, as I would do for any other human being. Respectfully, however, I reserve the right to put my opinions forward if others choose to do as such.

I do not argue that he was a leader, and far be it from me to deny him support. He was a man worthy of much respect, and I do not feel that I have been disrespectful in any way.

Again, may he rest in peace.

Ant.

 

[mistyrose]

Do you display photos of your loved ones in your home?
These = statues.
Do you think about those who have gone before you, a mother , a father, a friend, learn from their lessons?
This ='s praying to the holy Mother for guidance. She understands suffering, and never asked her son to step down from his job to matter how hard.
Do you 'confess' your heart to your friends and seek advice from them, and then feel better afterwards?
This ='s confessing to a priest.
And the good part is they don't go off and gossip to everybody afterwards.
These are our Catholic traditions.
How is this 'un-Christian' or pompous?
You have much to learn young Jedi....
If you are another denomination you need to know that these Catholic traditions are part of your own 'Christain history'.
Please don't judge what you don't bother to learn, much less respect. +++

Excuse me, but I was not trying to judge anyone in my post. I merely pointed out that the Catholic sect of the Christian religion does things that other sects may or may not necessarily do. That is all.

I am not Catholic, but that does not make me unaware of these things. Everyone in my family (father's side and mother's side) are Catholics except for my immediate family. So I grew up with their traditions.

I never mentioned the word pompous except when I was quoting someone else. Next time, please don't judge what you don't bother to know.

 

[Bono's shades]

I was only 11 or so when John Paul II became pope. Even at that age I was aware there was something different about his pope. He wasn't just going to be some guy sitting in the Vatican. He was out traveling the world and insisting on freedom - religious and otherwise - behind the Iron Curtain. I remember all the excitement when he came to visit my home state (Iowa) many years ago. I didn't get to go see him even though I really wanted to and I've always regretted that - especially today.

As I got older I learned that the pope I had loved and admired so much in my youth held some opinions sharply opposed to my own - especially his refusal to budge on issues such as birth control, gay rights and ordaining women. That was a sharp disappointment. But I still believe whoever follows him is going to have a very hard time measuring up. RIP, JPII.

 

[U2@NYC]

Your request is noted, and will be respected. However, as a practicing Catholic myself I feel I must explain - I pray that the man found peace and is with God, as I would do for any other human being. Respectfully, however, I reserve the right to put my opinions forward if others choose to do as such.

I do not argue that he was a leader, and far be it from me to deny him support. He was a man worthy of much respect, and I do not feel that I have been disrespectful in any way.

Again, may he rest in peace.

Ant.

Thanks, Ant. Again, I am not asking to shut your opinions. Just to hold them for a little bit. For us Catholics, these news take some time to sink in.

 

[sallycinnamon78]

It's official. Pope John Paul II has died.

Thank God the poor man is at rest now.

http://www.jp2cc.org/jp2/

 

[lady luck]

A great pope has gone.
May his example of love, peace, faith and will be a model for all of us.
I was watching tv (I live in Milan, Italy) and I saw all those images of this great man with kids, babies and teenagers and it just made me cry so hard.

The whole world is praying for this man, a real peace-builder. And the fact that Muslims, Protestant, Jews and Catholic are praying together just makes me hope!

 

[lady luck]

"One step closer to knowing" comes to my mind.

But maybe the pope already knew...

 

[Eirinn]

I wanted to post something wise and poignant, but words simply fail me. For us, it is not only the Pope who has died, it is one of us, maybe the greatest Pole of all times. The sadness we feel here... it is beyond any words.

 

[HolyJoe914]

The Pope did many great things, some not so great. He might have done more, but so many others have done much less.

What he did do, will be felt for the ages.

And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage that you can bring
Love is not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind...

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong

Oh, oh
Walk on, walk on
What you got, they can't steal it
No, they can't even feel it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight

You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed, to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly, for freedom

Oh, oh
Walk on, walk on
What you got, they can't deny it
Can't sell it, or buy it
Walk on, walk on
You stay safe tonight

And I know it aches
And your heart, it breaks
You can only take so much

Walk on...
Walk on...

Home...
Hard to know what it is, if you never had one
Home...
I can't say where it is, but I know I'm going
Home...
That's where the hurt is...

And I know it aches
And your heart, it breaks
And you can only take so much

Walk on...
(Hooo)

Leave it behind
You got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you feel

All this, you can, leave behind ...

All that you reason, (it's only time)
(Love is a feeling on my mind)
All that you sense
All that you scheme
All you dress-up
All that you've seen
All you create
All that you wreck

 

[HolyJoe914]

 

[intedomine]

Everyone dies and today it was Popey's turn. Shame for those close to him.

Seemed like an OK bloke (for a fundamentalist Catholic).

The fact that he was willing to try on Bono's glasses is indeed "funky" and it is admirable that he managed to get over that cruel assassination attempt 20 odd years ago. Shocking thing to happen.

To be honest, I have trouble understanding how the Catholics are feeling, but obviously, a lot of them are in mourning. I hope they all get over it OK, and that they can look forward to the future.

My deepest sympathy to those close to him...but, y'know, wouldnt it be great if people could live forever, but once it ends it ends. I wish there was never and end to life, but there is.


Anyway, sympathy from me to all those who need it....

 

[Gosia]

I live in Poland I had not imagined in my life that what happened last night after that terrible news. It was really "like last night on earth"... We really feel united now and a bit like orphans: we lost our father. I had this luck to be in the last pope's private audience. Well, I had not had this concious that it was last... Few hours later, he went to the hospital...
Please, pray.

 

[Laura M]

.

 

[VertigoGal]

Everyone dies and today it was Popey's turn. Shame for those close to him.

Seemed like an OK bloke (for a fundamentalist Catholic).

The fact that he was willing to try on Bono's glasses is indeed "funky" and it is admirable that he managed to get over that cruel assassination attempt 20 odd years ago. Shocking thing to happen.

To be honest, I have trouble understanding how the Catholics are feeling, but obviously, a lot of them are in mourning. I hope they all get over it OK, and that they can look forward to the future.

My deepest sympathy to those close to him...but, y'know, wouldnt it be great if people could live forever, but once it ends it ends. I wish there was never and end to life, but there is.


Anyway, sympathy from me to all those who need it....

^^^Perfectly sums up what I was going to say.

 

[Jamila]

Bono seemed to have a bit more respect upon the passing of Pope John Paul II.


Here is a beautiful little article regarding Bono's feelings at the passing of Pope John Paul II:



Bono cheers 'best frontman' Pope


Bono travelled widely as part of his anti-poverty campaigning

U2 lead singer Bono has paid tribute to Pope John Paul II, calling him the "best frontman the Roman Catholic Church ever had".

They met when they campaigned to end world debt and both were nominees for the Nobel peace prize.

Bono described the late pontiff - who died on Saturday - as "a great show man, a great communicator of ideas".

"Without John Paul II its hard to imagine the Drop the Debt campaign succeeding as it did," Bono added.

The Drop the Debt movement campaigns to convince wealthy nations to cancel the debts of the world's poorest countries.

The Pope met Bono, along with other pop stars, aid workers and economists, in 1999 as the movement pushed for rich nations to write off debt owed by developing countries by the year 2000.

"How could you turn this man down?", Bono said about the Pope at the time.

The Pope also strove to understand popular culture and reach out to the world's young people.

In this vein, he once invited Bob Dylan to perform for him at a church congress in Bologna and joined the Eurythmics, Alanis Morissette and Lou Reed at a concert in Rome in aid of debt reduction.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4406191.stm


I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

Bono could realize the Good in the Pope because that same Goodness lives within his Heart and Soul.



"Tonight, we sing this for the Holy Father, a friend to the world's poor
(pause) and a great wearer of fly shades." -

Bono "40" Anaheim, during the
near last part of the song.

 

[Irvine511]

i wish the right wing christians in this country would be a respectful of the Pope's passing as the people on FYM. i just heard Franklin Graham speaking on CNN, and he was calling for an amdendment "to protect life" to be passed by congress in an act of memory and respect for the passing of the Pope, and to do it in his name.

in other words, he wants to exploit this moment of sadness and sorrow for the passing of a contraversial but unarguably "great" -- and, like courage to Susan Sontage, i think we can, in this context, use "great" as a morally neutral term -- man in order to remove the right of a woman to choose.

not looking to even dip a toe into the waters of pro/anti-choice/life/whatever -- just expressing disgust at the swarm of cultural vultures.

and it's going to get worse.

on a personal note, as a confirmed but collapsed Catholic, i am sorry to see him go -- and i hope the catholics continue to make steps in the right direction. he is an icon of the 20th century, and had more to do with the fall of communism than any other world leader -- precisely because he inspired the people of eastern europe to overthrow, bloodlessly, their dictatorships. something neither Regan nor Gorbachev could have ever done.

may he rest in peace, and may the Catholic church continue to progress.

 

[Sherry Darling]

I thought this article at Salon.com was respectful, gracious, balanced and complete. I appreciated the fact that it points out that the Pope had a much broader view of the "culture of life" the does the Bush admin or the US religious right, which define "life" issues by ignoring many of them...

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/04/02/pope/index.html

(if you need me to c'n'p, let me know. )

 

[deep]

I thought this article at Salon.com was respectful, gracious, balanced and complete.
(if you need me to c'n'p, let me know. )

please do

 

[Sherry Darling]

Compassionate conservative
John Paul II has been appropriated by the American right. But his "culture of life" was not the same as theirs.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Amy Sullivan

printe-mail

April 2, 2005 | The pope is dead. Long live the pope. Although Pope John Paul II -- who began life in Krakow, Poland, as Karol Wojtyla -- died Saturday night at the Vatican, another man will soon be elected as his successor. Everyone knows that this is how it works, that the papacy is an office (albeit one invested with more spiritual authority and emotional resonance than the next), that it does end with the death of the man who fills the role. And yet such is the influence and impact of John Paul II that man and title have become nearly fused in one. We can no sooner imagine a new man filling his shoes than a new Elvis appointed as a replacement within weeks after Elvis Presley's death. It is unthinkable.

For millions of Catholics, John Paul II is simply the only pope they have ever known; his unusually long rule is the fourth-longest tenure among 265 popes over nearly 2,000 years. Throughout his 26 years as head of the Roman Catholic Church, John Paul II traveled to more countries than all previous popes combined. "He has changed the style of being pope," Father Thomas Reese, the editor of America magazine, told CNN. "It used to be that the pope stayed home in Europe."

In our contemporary celebrity-obsessed media culture, the pope was a ready-made star. The 1981 attempt on his life took place at the advent of cable news and was almost too good to be true for the nascent industry which, by the end of its saturation coverage, had turned the pope into an international star/almost martyr/hero. Even at the end of his life, the pope did not fade away quietly, hiding his decline behind curtains, but instead insisted on appearing to the public in his wheelchair, with breathing tube in place, as a symbol of suffering and in solidarity with the sick and frail around the world.

In practical terms, John Paul II has left a powerful mark on the Roman Catholic Church worldwide and the American church in particular, primarily through his teachings -- embodied most visibly in 14 encyclicals -- and appointments of Catholic leaders. During his papacy, he appointed the majority of bishops and cardinals currently serving in the United States. Long after his death, John Paul II's ideological positions and teachings will live on through the men he handpicked to lead the church.

Although American Catholics have constituted a significant portion of the population starting with immigration in the 19th century, it wasn't until the second part of the 20th century that the church really came into its own. The reforms of the Second Vatican Council -- primarily the work of Pope John XXIII -- played a large role in developing the modern American Catholic Church. But it was the leadership of John Paul II that shaped the Church post-Vatican II, setting the tone for Catholic engagement with the American public square and political life.

Many American Catholics believed -- and hoped -- that Vatican II would bring their church in closer alignment with modernity, perhaps even allowing more flexibility for the church to adapt to changing times. And it's possible that if another man had been elected to Peter's throne after the death of Pope John Paul I, the momentum of Vatican II might have swept more reforms through the Church.

John Paul II, however, while in some ways an unconventional selection -- the first non-Italian in more than 400 years, he spent part of his youth writing plays and had connections to the Polish Solidarity movement -- was theologically quite conservative. Under his stewardship, the church wavered little, even in the midst of turbulence. The Cold War came and went, sex scandals arose in the American church, and technological advances posed challenges to church doctrine. Through it all, John Paul II steered his church with an orthodox hand.

The pope's conservatism on issues of gender, reproduction and sexual orientation -- he staunchly opposed the ordination of women and took a hard line on homosexuality, abortion and birth control -- divided American Catholics. Yet the pope was not uniformly conservative in his thinking. Although the right wing embraced him, they were only able to do so by ignoring major aspects of his teachings. John Paul II's death, coming on the heels of Terri Schiavo's, is already prompting calls to honor his memory by embracing a "culture of life." But while the pope first introduced that phrase to our cultural lexicon, what he meant by it and what is meant by those who would claim his mantle are worlds apart.

You could be forgiven for thinking that "culture of life" was a concept created not by John Paul II but by George W. Bush. Few people have done have more to popularize the phrase -- if not its correct spirit -- than our current president, who used it even before his first presidential campaign in 2000. While the use of "culture of life" was almost always intended to communicate Bush's position on abortion, it was actually part of a larger strategy to reach out to Catholic voters.

The phrase was a central part of what is arguably John Paul II's best-known encyclical, Evangelium Vitae ("The Gospel of Life"), which he released in 1995. Bush's savvy Catholic advisors -- including conservatives Deal Hudson and Tim Goeglein -- knew that the phrase would immediately resonate with Catholic voters while indicating nothing more than vague pro-life sentiments to non-Catholics. Bush's communications staff did the same thing with Protestant hymns and phrases, using code words that went over the heads of those who didn't recognize them while resonating deeply with those who did.

During Bush's tenure, the phrase has been employed in the service of opposing abortion, stem-cell research, cloning and -- most recently and publicly -- the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. When, in the third presidential debate, Bob Schieffer asked the candidates a question about abortion, the first words out of Bush's mouth were: "I think it's important to promote a culture of life." A quick Internet search for the words "John Kerry and culture of life" and then "Tom DeLay and culture of life" revealed that the phrase is most often used by conservatives to attack Democrats who "flout the culture of life" and by liberals to sneer at Republicans and their "culture-of-life cronies." The culture of life has become cemented in American conventional wisdom as equaling conservative social issues.

But a fair look at John Paul II's use of the phrase and his political priorities must conclude that although he was undoubtedly concerned about abortion and stem-cell research and euthanasia, that list is far from complete. The pontiff also wrote about "the dignity and rights of those who work," and he spoke out against the widening gap between the world's rich and poor. He opposed both Gulf Wars in no uncertain terms and strongly communicated his outrage when the abuse at Abu Ghraib was revealed. During a 1999 visit to the United States, John Paul II spoke out against the death penalty, calling the punishment "cruel and unnecessary" and successfully petitioning for the commutation of a death sentence for a Missouri prisoner when he spoke in St. Louis.

Anti-death penalty, antiabortion, antiwar, anti-stem-cell, pro-worker, pro-poor, pro-sick. It's hard to think of any American politician whose positions reflect the entirety of John Paul II's "life" concerns. Even the American Catholic Church doesn't always reflect the pope's priorities. While John Paul II applied a fairly consistent ethic of life -- what the late Cardinal Joseph Bernadin called the "seamless garment of life" -- the National Conference of Catholic Bishops has taken a different stance. In 1998, the conference issued a letter called "Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics" in which the bishops asserted that failure to following church teaching on abortion was more serious than any other issue, implying that a Catholic politician could neglect all other "life" issues and still be considered a good Catholic as long as he opposed abortion; at the same time, no amount of work for the poor or imprisoned or sick could save a pro-choice Catholic.

History will likely judge John Paul II as the pope of many firsts. He was the first pope to set foot in the nation of Israel, the first to enter a mosque and to visit a synagogue, the first to go to Greece since the Eastern Orthodox and Roman churches split over a thousand years ago. And he was the first to draw together centuries of Catholic teaching and vigorously promote them through the lens of "a culture of life."

His legacy, however, may be limited by an age-old reality: the tendency of political leaders and the faithful to hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest. "The culture of life" is not simply shorthand for abortion and gay marriage and Terri Schiavo. But those are the definitions that are well on their way to becoming the established understanding of the phrase. That would be an unfortunate, but not surprising, result of John Paul II's rule.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

About the writer
Amy Sullivan is an editor at the Washington Monthly.

 

[deep]

 

[verte76]

i wish the right wing christians in this country would be a respectful of the Pope's passing as the people on FYM. i just heard Franklin Graham speaking on CNN, and he was calling for an amdendment "to protect life" to be passed by congress in an act of memory and respect for the passing of the Pope, and to do it in his name.

I wish this was a joke. It's shameful and I think it's disrespectful to the Pope.

 

[melon]

i wish the right wing christians in this country would be a respectful of the Pope's passing as the people on FYM. i just heard Franklin Graham speaking on CNN, and he was calling for an amdendment "to protect life" to be passed by congress in an act of memory and respect for the passing of the Pope, and to do it in his name.

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

Melon

 

[U2@NYC]

I think the blame is on CNN for giving this Graham dude the spotlight...

 

[nbcrusader]

i wish the right wing christians in this country would be a respectful of the Pope's passing as the people on FYM.

Perhaps you should be more careful when you cast your net of blame....

 

[Irvine511]

Perhaps you should be more careful when you cast your net of blame....

sorry, i tried to be. i tossed as many adjectives on there as i could.

is Franklin graham not "right wing"? is he not a "christian"?

 

[nbcrusader]

If the "problem" is with Franklin Graham, why should the criticism go any further?

 

[Irvine511]

If the "problem" is with Franklin Graham, why should the criticism go any further?

Franklin Graham also has a large group of followers, and if you asked him, i'm sure he'd claim that he speaks for an even larger group of people.

also, this is really rather semantic.

it was a post i typed quickly. i'm sorry i didn't tack on enough appropriate disclaimers.