All this fuss about the Pope
So the Pope has been laid to rest today. It was quite a world event, wasn’t it? It was the “must attend” event of the year for world leaders – everybody from Hamid Kharzai to Tony Blair to a pair of Bushes and even the ostracized Robert Mugabe, who cannot visit the rest of Europe but can visit the independent Vatican City – apparently they are not so discriminating.
I must say it was refreshing to see the Guardian today with a Polly Toynbee article titled “The Vatican is a force for cruelty and hypocrisy”. At least one voice standing up to point out that the Catholic Church and the Pope have a less than perfect score on many concerns of the present day from the Church’s strict reaffirmation of abstinence versus contraception with all its consequences in a poverty stricken and AIDS-ridden Africa, to a serious failure to fully recognize the sexual conduct issues against priests in the USA. Ms Toynbee compares those paying homage to John Paul to those paying respects to Lenin – another leader that placed extreme ideology before human life and happiness. While I am sure the Pope was a nice fellow, even an exceptionally nice fellow, there’s probably something worth considering in all this, but it is something that is lost in this love-fest for the Pope.
