By Bruce Gorton
Times LIVE
October 18, 2011
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/expensive/2011/10/18/why-the-admiration-for-john-paul-ii/
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One of the things that puzzles me whenever you get people talking about popes is this – most people don’t like Ratzinger but why the admiration for John Paul II?
Is it because his name doesn’t make you think of a disgusting knock-off of a rather popular chicken burger?
Just think about it: John Paul II became pope in 1978.
The Irish abuse scandal? A lot of that was under his watch. As much as Ratzinger was the cardinal who oversaw the cover-up – the cover-up measures were undertaken under pope John Paul II. He was the pope when the single greatest moral threat to the church was swept under the carpet.
The Magdelene Asylums? Where the Catholic imprisoned women and forced them to work in their laundries against their will with the support of the Irish government (In other words, engaged in slavery)? The last one closed in 1996.
A fair chunk of that happened under his watch.
And keep that date John Paul II became pope in mind when you consider recent revelations about children being stolen and sold by Catholic hospitals in Spain - that only ended in 1987, when the Spanish government took their ability to do that away from them.
Mother Theresa’s hospices were on John Paul II’s watch. Money was taken from pious Catholics who thought they were donating to a good cause – namely helping sick people half a world away – and then used to open up missions all over the place while the sick people simply got warehoused for future photo ops and donation drives.
Even the bulk of the Catholic AIDS controversy was – John Paul II not changing doctrine with regards to condoms.
A lot of the current stuff that boils people’s blood over the Catholic Church, a lot of the current things which make people wonder just how somebody can still be Catholic after they get revealed – are things which happened when John Paul II was pope.
So why the veneration? Why act like he was a particularly good pope?
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