Speaking as a Catholic I believe Pope John Paul II was one of the world’s greatest personalities we have seen in modern times, certainly one of the most interesting and charismatic ambassadors for Catholicism in the churches very long history.

He was a real survivor in many positive and number of negative ways, the positive aspects being his capacity as a diplomat as well as an all-round very approachable person with a delightful sense of humour.

On the negative side we must remember that the Vatican being in many respects, a medieval totally male dominated empire which he perpetrated with little or no change. On this question I think is very interesting to raise is the idea that, “did Jesus ever intend the head of the first Christian Church to be a Woman?”

In the words of Lloyd Geering, one of the world’s foremost Christian thinkers;

“I contend that we have come to the end of traditional Christianity, and I point to the new phase which it has already entered. Indeed, if we look around us in the modern, secular world, we find already there many of the elements that Jesus talked about when he spoke of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God has been coming, and we haven’t even noticed it. It’s becoming when we asserted human rights for everybody. It’s becoming when we emancipated women from male domination. It’s becoming when we freed the slaves. And it is coming as we still painfully try to give fairness to homosexuals. And I further suggest that we have discovered sufficient of the footprints and the voiceprints of the original Jesus, to help us and inspire us in the path ahead”.

CedricT

To go against the grain of the outpouring of Papal grief by the media, I think it is disgraceful how at least one of the television networks launched into a 5 minute spiel of crocodile tears regarding the Pope’s death, when 9 Australian military servicemen and women died in Indonesia.  The latter story got a run after the first ad break.

I realise that both events are major headlines, but it would not have been difficult to start with the Pope story, followed by news of the military deaths, and then return to the regurgitated crap the media have been repeating for days about the Pope’s health and history.

I find it so disrespectful to these servicemen and women that they are treated as low level news due to the death of a man who heads the Catholic Church.  I have no issue with John Paul II, but to be brutally honest his death upsets me not one iota - he was the head of a church that I have no respect for and he had a good and long life that was not tragically cut short. 

Those who died in the Indonesian helicopter accident were serving their country and dealing with real world issues and real problems, as opposed to the Catholic Church.

Geoff Rollins
Launceston

I see no contradiction between the Pope’s stance on democracy and his position on religious and moral beliefs. The former refers to the secular world, while the latter to matters of faith. The writer of the article in opendemocracy conviniently ignores that (i) religions are not democracies and (ii) people have the right to change to a more accomodating religion if they want to. If something is considered inappropriate or sinful by a religion I would not consider antidemocratic that the leader of that religion supports that position.
Note: I make these comments as an atheist.

About the comment by Geoff Rollins, I understand his pain, but we have to acknowledge that the death of the pope affects 1,000,000,000 Catholics, while the death of the helicopter crew “only” affects 20,000,000 people. Fifty to one impact. To be honest, I don’t care about the death of the Pope, but I don’t care either about the death of 9 military that I didn’t know.

Things were going pretty much OK until I read the last line of Prince of Darkness’ post.  You bloody arsehole. 

So what if you don’t know them? Neither did I.  However they were all serving this country and providing assistance to a country in need and for that they deserve respect and not “I don’t care”.

You can then, of course, argue that I should care about the Pope’s death given his apparent greatness.  However that would start me on a rant about draconian policies, how the Catholic church breeds child molesters and how there is a big difference between doing a real world, real life thing (those who died in Nias) compared with governing a belief system.

And Prince of Darkness, put your bloody name with your post and don’t hide behind the Internet.