S
stumbler
Guest
By Michael Cook
06/10/2005
Only a month after the death of his predecessor, the new Pope, Benedict XVI, announced that he had launched the process which culminates in Catholic sainthood. The Vatican normally moves at a glacial pace in such things, so the unprecedented speed confirms what most people feel about John Paul II – that he was an extraordinarily good chap.
However, before the faithful get too wound up, something has to be tidied up: the little matter of whether Karol Wojtyla was, in fact, the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century. If he was, canonisation might not be such a good idea.
Here’s what the devil’s advocates have had to say.
Nicholas Kristof, of the New York Times, says that the Vatican’s rejection of condoms has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, making it one of “its most tragic mistakes in the first two millennia of its history” (1). The influential New Statesman, in London, ran a cover story shortly after the Pope’s death claiming that he “probably contributed more to the continental spread of [AIDS] than the trucking industry and prostitution combined” (2).
Rosemary Neill, of The Australian, in Sydney, opined that the intransigent Vatican “will eventually be accused of crimes against humanity” (3).
Polly Toynbee, of the UK’s Guardian newspaper – who clearly had something quite vile for breakfast that morning – compared JP2 to Lenin: “they both put extreme ideology before human life and happiness, at unimaginable human cost” (4).
Even doctors chimed in. The world’s leading medical journal, The Lancet, accused an ignorant and rigid Pope of presenting “insuperable obstacles to the prevention of disease” (5).
I’m not aware of whether any of these writers have visited AIDS hospices and embraced AIDS patients, as John Paul II did, or worked as hard John Paul II did to get international funding for AIDS treatment. By and large, they seem to be the same crowd who put the boot into everything else he did. But they have made their claim and it deserves a hearing. Does it stand up?
There’s no doubt that AIDS in Africa is terrifying. The latest survey of AIDS prevalence in Swaziland, a tiny kingdom of 2 million people surrounded by South Africa, has reached 42.6 per cent, the highest in the world. And climbing. Three years ago, in 2002, it was 38.6 per cent. “Swaziland will be wiped out,” said one AIDS activist despairingly (6). Figures for other countries in southern Africa are almost as grim.
According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), two-thirds of people with HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa. At the end of 2004, 25.4 million people there were infected, with about 3 million infected during the year. Life expectancy at birth has dropped below 40 in nine countries: Botswana, Central African Republic, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe, life expectancy at birth was 52 years in 1990, and only 34 in 2003 (7).
Awful. Unbelievably, heart-rendingly awful.
But there is something absurdly medieval about making the Pope a scapegoat, as if the clouds would break and the sun shine if we thrust enough pins through a JP2 voodoo doll. Pinning such blame for the tragedy of African AIDS on one man is one of those ideas that is, in the words of George Orwell, “so stupid that only intellectuals could believe them.” . . .
Full article
06/10/2005
Only a month after the death of his predecessor, the new Pope, Benedict XVI, announced that he had launched the process which culminates in Catholic sainthood. The Vatican normally moves at a glacial pace in such things, so the unprecedented speed confirms what most people feel about John Paul II – that he was an extraordinarily good chap.
However, before the faithful get too wound up, something has to be tidied up: the little matter of whether Karol Wojtyla was, in fact, the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century. If he was, canonisation might not be such a good idea.
Here’s what the devil’s advocates have had to say.
Nicholas Kristof, of the New York Times, says that the Vatican’s rejection of condoms has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, making it one of “its most tragic mistakes in the first two millennia of its history” (1). The influential New Statesman, in London, ran a cover story shortly after the Pope’s death claiming that he “probably contributed more to the continental spread of [AIDS] than the trucking industry and prostitution combined” (2).
Rosemary Neill, of The Australian, in Sydney, opined that the intransigent Vatican “will eventually be accused of crimes against humanity” (3).
Polly Toynbee, of the UK’s Guardian newspaper – who clearly had something quite vile for breakfast that morning – compared JP2 to Lenin: “they both put extreme ideology before human life and happiness, at unimaginable human cost” (4).
Even doctors chimed in. The world’s leading medical journal, The Lancet, accused an ignorant and rigid Pope of presenting “insuperable obstacles to the prevention of disease” (5).
I’m not aware of whether any of these writers have visited AIDS hospices and embraced AIDS patients, as John Paul II did, or worked as hard John Paul II did to get international funding for AIDS treatment. By and large, they seem to be the same crowd who put the boot into everything else he did. But they have made their claim and it deserves a hearing. Does it stand up?
There’s no doubt that AIDS in Africa is terrifying. The latest survey of AIDS prevalence in Swaziland, a tiny kingdom of 2 million people surrounded by South Africa, has reached 42.6 per cent, the highest in the world. And climbing. Three years ago, in 2002, it was 38.6 per cent. “Swaziland will be wiped out,” said one AIDS activist despairingly (6). Figures for other countries in southern Africa are almost as grim.
According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), two-thirds of people with HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa. At the end of 2004, 25.4 million people there were infected, with about 3 million infected during the year. Life expectancy at birth has dropped below 40 in nine countries: Botswana, Central African Republic, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe, life expectancy at birth was 52 years in 1990, and only 34 in 2003 (7).
Awful. Unbelievably, heart-rendingly awful.
But there is something absurdly medieval about making the Pope a scapegoat, as if the clouds would break and the sun shine if we thrust enough pins through a JP2 voodoo doll. Pinning such blame for the tragedy of African AIDS on one man is one of those ideas that is, in the words of George Orwell, “so stupid that only intellectuals could believe them.” . . .
Full article
Take the responsiblility for others behavior and put it on the Pope
Chasity, morality, drugs etc; are to blame, not JP2.