The Pope is dying

[Rei]

I'm not a very religious person, and this probably not the best place to have a thread like this, but since people cared to post about dead or supposed to be dead actors, I think it's even more important to have a note about such personality passing away. Whatever our religion is, his personality for sure meant something on several levels for people living during the last years of the XX century and also for those during the first years of the new century as well. He's done much for peace, for giving hope to the miserable, he's spoken also for those who are still voiceless. Even if the Church has its faults, he was the first Pope, the first really important personality to admit these faults in front of the world. He's played an important role in history. He's tried to give the world a chance in times of war and disorder, like last year, with his speech before Iraq was attacked. He kept dialogue opened between different faiths and beliefs. The whole world is in anguish and I admit that as I said I'm not the most religious person around, but I was struck and moved by images of the last days of this Pope, so vigorous during past times, later even unable to speak in front of his usual audience for the Easter celebrations. What is he going to leave to us and to the future generations? What will be his final teaching, if there is one?

As a person who's suffering he deserves all the respect, and as a person who's played an important role in history, whether you share his views or not, I thought it was the right thing to do to remember there's a lot more than videogames sometimes to reflect about.

[IcyMourdor]

Unfortunately, death is another part of life. He was done a lot for the catholic religion and has tried to keep peace across our war-struck world.

However, I believe that it is his true time to rest. He has done what he can and I'm sure that he has left enough behind to teach new generations to someday bring peace.

[kamari-ice]

The pope will be in my blessings.

[Uchiha Sasuke]

Why is that people seem to worship the Pope more than god?

[Meiko]

It's just sad how even persons like him have to die this way and are unable to feel their "mission" is complete :(

May he find some peace of mind before his last travel.

Sasuke I don't think people worship him more than god. These are two completely different things. People who are believers find a link between them and god also thanks to the words of the pope, so for them it's a loss of great importance, and it's good somebdy's still able to mourn him and express sincere grief, especially considering this man spent most of his life trying to talk to people, trying to get them together. I don't think this has only to do with religion. It's like losing a figure of some support, a sort of fatherly image. It's more likely to find people who worship singers or football players more than god... these kind of people are a bore.

[Vic Viper]

the pope has died. may he RIP. :cry:

[tempted]

R.I.P. Karol Wojtyla :shame:

[Harry]

As Rei said so well in her post, the church may have its faults, but this man was a resource, a treasure for all those who believed in values that have become rare in our society. Whether you were catholic or not, Karol Wojtyla was more than a "role", more than an "institution", more than another figure representing hidden powers moving in the shadows - he was a just man, able to see the suffering of those who have no way to be seen, a man able to be sympathetic to the pain of the others. It may sound like something you hear everyday, but I believe that men able to speak with honesty to the heart of men like he did are the rarest treasure in the world. Yes, non catholic people like me couldn’t really agree to everything he said, but what he said he said with honesty, with clear eyes, looking at what he knew was the only way for humanity to live a better and more meaningful existence. His teachings, his words, often simple (not in their meaning, but in the way he spoke them), were not aimed at creating a stronger "Church-institution" (which he knew would be not possible nowadays), but at creating a community of men following the teachings of the Christ. And whether you believe or not, this makes of him a man that did something also for you, and for me. The believers who "seem to worship this pope more than god", have all the reasons to do so. John Paul II is all the things he has said, all the things he has done, all the countries he has visited, all the people he saluted, all the never-ending and never heard appeals against war and against criminals that claimed Christ was on their side, all the signs that accompanied him during his pontificate. Those who don’t believe in god, can love this man for some of the same reasons.

But I am not afraid to say that I prefer to admire and feel affection for a man like him more than worshipping an abstract conception of god. His body, once vigorous, in the end crushed, a concentration of pain and suffering, became a living – and for this reason, incredibly powerful - allegory of the suffering of any living being. How painful is the existence of any creature, how much we must all suffer in our life, from the day we are born until we die, yet how many incredible things we have to see, to feel, to love in this world. A good beer, the embrace of the person we love, a warm bed your mother has prepared for you, snow, rain, the sky, the sea at dawn, the sea at dusk, the whole universe is so incredible, so immense, and our body, so small and frail, yet a ship from where we can look at all this. And we often risk to spend all our life loving nothing, and hating everything. I may not be a believer, but I am able to see that behind the adventure of this man there was every man, and every man is Christ.

[kamari-ice]

Harry, Rei, and Meiko, I applaud you all for your well written posts.

I too agree with you Harry, every single word of yours.

[TtTackler]

I don't believe in any religion for my own reasons, but it's sad to see someone that so many millions looked up to and were influenced by pass away.

[Pu the Owl]

Can't add more to Harry's wonderful post, which is something very powerful, considering it comes from a non-catholic person.

I'm not Catholic either. Till 10 or so my mother and father weren't Catholic, at least not in the strict sense of the term. Let's say they didn't have any belief though being brought up in a catholic environment. They were interested a lot in politics and political issues, and for this reason they were very critical and distrustful regarding anything involving church, rites and such things. They were against the institution of Church, from many points of view, so church as a physical place was sort of unknown and forbidden for me. Strange contrast came by the fact of living with one of my grandmothers, who on the other hand was a strong believer. She was a devotee of Pope John XXIII, an admirer of all holy saints you can think of, from martyrs to anybody else gifted with halo, stigmata or wings, and a follower of Saint Padre Pio. She liked so much catholic iconography that she used to have her room filled with all sorts of scary images of suffering maidens and tortured souls, monks with crowns of candles and lambs at their feet, golden or porcelain miniatures, rosary beads, metal crosses, drawings portraing several versions of the weepy face of the Virgin Mary and thorns-crowned Jesus. She was particularly proud of a tiny statue of the Virgin Mary containing few drops of blessed water coming from the shrine of Lourdes she received many years before as a gift. My family became Catholic in a more strict sense after I was 10. My father become interested in theological matters, started reading tons of books on the subject and played all day vinyls of Bach's sacred music, to my little friends terror. Bach's organ seemed more possessed by Satan or some other demonic presence to them than able to produce celestial music, and they sometimes cried hearing the vinyl playing. Before that my father used to listen to more "profane" compositions, and liked a lot Red Army's chants and Inti-Illimani plus other classical non-sacred stuff. I don't know if I can call it a conversion. He even let few selected priests enter our house, which was out of discussion before that time! And obviously I was allowed after that to go to church, to take part to religious celebrations, sing chants glorifying the Holy Trinity etc. But I admit even in these days were I was involved more in religious matters, I wasn't a strong believer. It was a novelty and a game more than anything else. How can a kid be a firm and responsible believer? Growing up I become skeptical and completely lost interest in faith as it is traditionally considered around here. I wouldn't call myself atheistic though, I'd rather consider myself agnostic, since I don't deny the existance of god, but I don't feel like affirming and devote myself to anything like that either.

Well, even if for many reasons, first of all the lack of sincere faith, I can't call myself a Catholic or part of any other Church, I used to associate many aspects of my life, especially during my childhood years, with the image of the Pope. I remember arguments during Sunday mornings because my grandmother wanted to see him on TV while I wouldn't let her have the remote control - I wanted to watch cartoons or TV shows about superheroes! I remember the eyes of a younger friend when he came back from a meeting with the Pope: he was so excited and almost ecstatic, while I couldn't see what was so great in it. I remember the white robe and the smiling face printed on spoons, candles, postcards, t-shirts and other cheesy ornaments during some school trip. I remember the shaky hands calmly moving inside the TV screen during religious festivities, as Sundays, Easter or Christmas, and the voice surrounded by the echo of the microphone, which I always found to be creepy in a supernatural sense of the word, as it was coming from the greatest distances in time and space, like on Tv I could only watch and hear the ghost of somebody who wasn' there for real at the moment, but was pronouncing and spreading all sort of arcane knowledge.
It's like, you know... thinking some things or figures are eternal. They will always be there, and even if you don't care much for them in your everyday life you feel some sort of respect or safety knowing they are so immutable while time changes everything around them. Your life flows too, but there are these unnoticeable certainties that keep on nurturing your ego and are like hinges your daily existance revolves around. You have them before your eyes for your whole life. You don't think they can eventually disappear once and for all. Because the Pope I'm used to has always been there, like those eternal presences you know maybe don't really exist if not in fairy tales or legends, like Santa or the bogeyman. I knew this man called Wojtyla was real, because I had evidence of it (when adults strongly believe in something, a kid cannot think it doesn't exixst! that's why I stopped believing in Santa at 3... adults were clearly faking their belief in him! and used to hide gifts under beds or inside wardrobes, but that's another story...), but to me he was sort of ethereal and non-existant, speaking of material experience. I will always associate this image of the man in white with childhood and youth, with the watery eyes of my bizarre grandmother, with bells tolling during festive days, with a local fair, with November, gloomily lit by white candles silently burning and melting in the Day of the Dead, with all things now lost you didn't think you needed or cared for when you had them, but you somewhat miss when they're gone.

[Aubrey McFatum]

I don't like religion with its big words and views on many issues, it's years I don't visit a church or pray, but I've always had sympathy for this man. He was genuinely empathic and interested in the life of humble people. That's why people are so saddened, especially in the poor and troubled parts of the planet, like in Eastern Europe, in Africa, in some parts of Asia and in South America, by his death. They know he was honest and these countries need to be listened to, need faith to keep alive their hopes. More than anything, he gave them hope.

May he rest in peace.

[Berserker]

R.I.P.

I just hope the next pope won't be so conservative in his ideas about women in church and gay people. I thought he was a strong personality and maybe I even shouldn't judge him cause I'm a complete atheist. It's a good thing he always had a strong opinion about wars and let the leaders know, too bad that he couldn't apologise for the things happened in WO ll.

[Lux]

I respect the man and his efforts, I'm sad he passed away suffering so much, but I don't respect at all what he represented, a conservative power unable to see the real problems of the world. I hope the next pope will be somebody from Africa or South America, they probably know a little better what church and religion should be for followers and talk about to governments nowadays instead of only trying to please the audience with glorious celebrations and redudant appeals to the young.

[Harry]

I respect the man and his efforts, I'm sad he passed away suffering so much, but I don't respect at all what he represented, a conservative power unable to see the real problems of the world. I hope the next pope will be somebody from Africa or South America, they probably know a little better what church and religion should be for followers and talk about to governments nowadays instead of only trying to please the audience with glorious celebrations and redundant appeals to the young.

I agree about the conservative power thing, but I do not agree on the latter part of your post. Honestly, I think it comes just from misinformation, and it isn't your fault. Similarly, I think Beserker's ending lines in his post come from misinformation.

This pope was conservative in many ways, mainly in sexual-related problems, and that's where I could not agree with him. But that's also where what you said about him "trying to please the audience" is completely meaningless - speaking to young people about sex in a conservative way, like he did, wasn't exactly some done to appeal the audience. When he said "live following Jesus' teachings" he never meant this was an easy path, but he always mentioned it was a path of sacrifice. He always said just what he thought was right, never to please his audience.

When you speak about his lack of force against governments you are completely wrong. Actually, according to everyone, also to those who didn't like this pope, he was one of the fiercest opponents of the world's powerful governments of all times. At the beginning of his pontificate there was his well known activity against Communism and URSS - at the time, one of the two world superpowers - but, surprisingly, this never meant he was a supporter of the other side, U.S. invasive and pervasive capitalism. He fought strongly against Regan, Bush 1, Bush 2, and even against Clinton. He talked against all governments that he knew were not respecting human rights - and not blindly, but studying carefully each country's situation (that's why Cuba and the Vatican became closer recently - he strongly criticized Castro, but he also discovered what was really good behind the ideals of the revolution). He desperately tried to establish a dialogue with China. He fought against all the most powerful countries in the world - yes, he had little impact on U.S., but this doesn't mean he didn't try, EVERY SINGLE TIME he talked to the people during his voyages and every Sunday, when he was in Rome.

The fact he was unheard, doesn't mean he didn't fight - the fact you don't know what he really did, and that you, like millions of people in the world, believe he just spent his time talking to young people to please them, it is just another terrible proof that even the most influential people, even those who spent all their life fighting, can do nothing against those who control the flux of mass media nowadays.

He was so strong in his attacks against these countries, that he often used words and gestures bordering on diplomatic incidents.

Sadly, I realized in these days, and this was confirmed by reports from many journalists all around the world, that the major networks, from newspapers to TVs, while always happy to divulge the pope's most "peaceful" and simple speeches (like those you mentioned targeted to young people) have ALWAYS been extremely reluctant to talk about the pope's criticism against consumerism, capitalism, and first of all, against U.S. aggressive foreign politics. Since few know about what he really did during his life, let me just quote what he said before the latest shameful, disgusting war in Iraq:

"When war, like the one now in Iraq, threatens the fate of humanity, it is even more urgent for us to proclaim, with a firm and decisive voice, that only peace is the way of building a more just and caring society"

If you look back at my post pre-Iraq war, I already quoted him at that time.

It's really amazing people don't know about this. The article in this link speaks in detail about the Vatican's efforts against the war in Iraq. It seems quite detailed, and summarize what I remember I have read on the newspapers in Italy before and after the war.

link (http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j122903.html)

…too bad that he couldn't apologise for the things happened in WO ll.

One of the most important things he did was exactly to apologize for Church's crimes against humanity. In particular he also apologized for all the church did against Jews. His efforts to bring Jews and Catholics closer were many, and that is why Jews loved him so much.

He was the first pope in history to apologise for ALL the dirty things the Church has done throughout the centuries, from the beginning to the end.

Maybe you mean he didn't criticize Pius XII directly; Pius XII remains actually a very controversial figure (some say he was a saint, other say he was anti-semitic!), we will see if this figure will change with the next pontificate.

Another nice, and very well written article link (http://news.sympatico.msn.ca/Special+Features/The+Best+Pope+the+Jews+Ever+Had.htm)

[Berserker]

Sorry I didn't put things clearer but I meant apologies for the dirty things the vatican did in Ww ll(and after that), including the claims of helping nazis fled and managing nazi gold and he never apologied for that right?(correct me if I'm wrong)

[Harry]

These are just theories of some historians that have never been demonstrated. Actually, these "rumors" and criticism against Pius XII come from the fact Vatican remained neutral for most part of WWII, even if the pope spoke many times against racism - many think Vatican could do much more to stop Nazis, others think Vatican preferred to work in secret, remaining neutral on the outside.

By the way, all major forces involved in the war knew about nazi labor camps at the time Vatican reportedly found out what was happening; that's why, especially in recent years, same criticism previously targeted to the Vatican is now targeted also to the major players in the war.

Here is another great and unbiased article on the subject - http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Marrus.html - from the Jewish online library.

[Faile]

Firstly I'm apparently a historian. They keep telling me that (perhaps I'm getting it wrong and they mean I'm history instead?). Speaking as a "Historian" (if I may be so bold), I believe that it is very important not to tie down mistakes of the past on nations or institutions that moved beyond said mistakes. Imagine if we did not? We'd all have reason to hate Germany and America, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, China and just about every country in the world. Even Canada. From the historical point of view, a main source of resistance within Nazi Germany came from the Church. I believe I've seen various sources and articles that go in to some depth that the Vatican was actually attempting to spare as many Jewish people as possible. Certainly even Mussolini attempted to ward off Himmler's final solution for the Jewish people.
But I do digress wildly.
The Pope had died. It's a sensitive subject to talk upon. I'm of no real faith, I was raised a pagan by my mother, I've rarely been to church, but I do believe in a higher force. I guess I'm agnostic by standards.
I'm lucky to have had the chance to visit the Vatican twice. I have no interest in the area as a centre of faith, more out of curiosity and historical interest. Seeing the crowds in St Peters on the television really surprised me although I'm not sure I could tell you why. Such displays of pure faith and emotion for something as intangible (to me) as religeon surprises me. But throw me in a concert or show and I'll display the same traits.
I digress again though.
So yes, the Pope is dead. Why should I mark this occasion? I live in a country that is for the most part Protestant. In fact we have quite a history for brutally oppressing the Catholic faith. Is the Pope not at the centre of said faith? Why are all the flags flying at half mast?
I was (rarely) speaking with my father on the phone last night and we were talking about the effect of the Pope. I put the same points to him and he suggested that the role he played in world politics and the downfall of the oppressive Soviet Union was his masterwork. The bridges built by this man, right across the world far surpassed the effect of the Church. These 'bridges' / diplomacy are things that I can feel. Although I would find it rather bold to suggest that the downfall of Communism is attributable solely to the Pope, this is but one example of his work. I believe Harry detailed these efforts in far more detail and knowledge than I could muster.
It's hard to detatch the man from the faith here, especially for me. I was shocked to recently read comments he had made comparing Abortion to the Holocaust. Yes, the view of the Church on contraception and the right of Women is backward, but at least in aspects of his role, the Pope dragged the view of the Church forwards on some aspects. I really hope his successor can carry this and change the role of the Church within society to something far more equal and open.

I don't know where I was going with that post. Apologies if it makes no sense. I just wanted to say something.

[Berserker]

Thanx for the links Harry, I don't have time now, but I will get into them shortly cause it's quite an interesting subject.