Enough of this right-wing Pope already!

The Straight Goods Cyber Forum
with Larry Solway

Commentary:

  For five day Toronto was awash in papal sentimentality. Politicians and others were falling all over themselves with sanctimonious praise for his stamina in the face of debilitating Parkinson's, The media, especially TV, were in reverential awe. The crowds were suffused with piety and the kids who came from far and wide could do no wrong.
  I was reminded of The Emperor's New Clothes. Hardly anyone (except perhaps for Rick Salutin and John Allemang in The Globeissued any kind of a demurrer on the blessings of the Papal visit. I should disqualify myself because I am an unrepentant atheist and, while I strive (and lose) to be tolerant, I find that all the praying and worship and Divine Providence stuff to be a display of nothing more than public credulity. They actually believe that stuff. So maybe it makes them feel better, not for me to judge.
  Even if I were devout, even if I happened to be a Roman Catholic, I would side with the American Bishops who deplores the Pope's intransigence on social issues like abortion, birth control and women officiating at Mass, and have demanded he issue a statement about sexual molestation. The Pope finally made a passing reference to the issue, but fell far short of condemning the Church hierarchy for keeping a blind eye and transferring sexual predators to other parishes.
  I am not impressed by the toadying of politicians at best of times, and this headlong obeisance to John Paul is in a word - nauseating.
  My feelings about this reactionary man who dwells on world peace and care for the poor, but has no time for issues like priestly pedophilia, are clearly unkind. My feelings go back a long way. They go back to the two visits His Holiness made to the world's most Jewish city - New York. The list of dignitaries should include a prominent rabbi. But the Pope arrived in New York on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, The Day of Atonement - Yom Kippur. The first time he did it I put it down to an error by his protocol people. But he did it again. What he did would be similar to a leading rabbi arriving at the Vatican on Good Friday and wondering why he couldn't get an audience.
  That's my private beef. I can leave it and move on to the rantings of Archbishop George Pell of Sydney Australia. He told the adoring youth that abortion was a worse scandal that priestly sexual abuse! He invoked his version of Biblical damnation when he proclaimed that The Word was supreme. He said "It's important for you to defend Catholic tradition as coming to us from Christ and the apostles. We are not free to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong."
  Well Bishop Pell, YOU are what is wrong, you and your pious colleagues who sit mired in the 16th century hoping that not only The Reformation, but anything even faintly liberal, would go away.
  His belief in the primacy of the Church belongs to another age. The saddest thing I read about his sermon was that the assembled youth cheered long and loudly.
  Toronto's own archbishop admonished the youth not to let themselves be taken in by tolerance for other faiths less important than Catholicism.
  What World Youth Day was supposed to do was to bring together youth of all beliefs and denominations in an ecumenical welling up of concern for the world. What we got was a cheering section for Papal Absolutism.
  Good for him that he blessed the boats on Lake Simcoe. Good for him that he walked off the plane. Good for him that he survives in spite of his debilitating illness. But bad for us that he may not be replaced by the likes of Pope John, the only bright light in the last 50 years. The only Pope who understood what justice was all about.
  Did I go to his Mass at Downsview? No more than a Roman Catholic cab driver who told me he was staying away because he was more concerned with feeding his kids than getting on his knees.

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