Perhaps because I’m not Catholic, I don’t understand the blinders that so many people have strapped on about the papacy of John Paul II.
Even the so-called liberal press can’t resist the urge to gush about what some of us think was a 26-year-long lost opportunity to strengthen the Church.
Certainly, one is compelled to admire someone who kept his convictions during the dark days of the Nazi occupation of Poland.
One can also admire the well-traveled JP II’s physical strength and commitment to the flock; his intellectual brilliance; the consistency of his concern for injustice and the poor; and his courageous 10-year struggle with Parkinson’s.
But, to be honest, I was relieved yesterday when his death was announced, partly out of compassion for the man’s physical suffering, and partly out of the hope that the Church to which my grandchildren belong could, at last, recoup from the divisive, painful, right-wing excesses of the last 2 1/2 decades.
When John XXIII died in 1963, his greatness and holiness was so extraordinary that the whole world was moved, even the non-Christian, self-absorbed young folk among us.
I don’t have the same feeling about JPII. His deeply-held misogyny, his grotesque mismanagement of the child sexual abuse scandals in the US (not to mention Australia, Austria, Ireland and the Philippines), his obstinance in stifling the liberation theology movement in South America, his inability to deal effectively with the difficulties of recruiting new clergy – for me, these overshadow all those actions for which he is being celebrated currently.
And I am still chafing over his order to Father Robert Drinan, an articulate, progressive, highly respected Congressman from Massachusetts, to resign his position in 1981.
I felt at the time, and I still do, that the motivation was an all too human wish not to share the spotlight with a member of the Catholic clergy who was getting a lot of public attention. I saw it then and still now as a deep personal flaw which a man of God in particular should have had the humility to recognize AND to correct.
JPII had personally selected all but 3 of the Cardinals who will be voting on his replacement, so I suspect that, unless the office changes the person radically, we will have more of the same for years to come.
This is very unfortunate. The moral authority of the Catholic Church has been severely eroded, especially in this Hemisphere.
Selfishly, I wish that it were a more effective agent for resistance to both the minority “Christian” Wrong and the selfish materialists in this country.
Selfishly, I wish that my grandchildren’s church is one that would make us progressives feel we have an ally in our concern for the well-being of children, women and the poor.
Over the next 2-3 weeks, we’ll be seeing and reading about the political machinations in Rome as the College of Cardinals prepares to elect a new Pope.
If there were ever a time to pray for a miracle, this is it.