ADMIN: The Death of the Pope

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Kathryn" <kcawte at n...> wrote:
>  
> 
> Geoff:
> 
> I feel I must disagree with Carolyn in her view of the late Pope and
> I think that many millions of people in Eastern Europe would do so
> too. A "great" man does not have to be flawless or a saint - or seen
> as such by outside observers. We in the UK have the example of
> Winston Churchill in that instance but I believe that God can use
> weak people, unbelieving people and flawed people to carry out his
> purposes.
>  
> I remember clearly watching with amazement and bated breath when the
> Pope returned to Poland in 1979 and encouraged Lech Walesa and his
> colleagues to continue with their stand in the Gdansk shipyard
> standoff - and it ultimately paid off. That was a catalyst to the
> weakening of the Communist hold over Eastern Europe and the eventual
> breaking of the chains which had held them for so long.
>  
> K
> 
> Frankly if John Paul II was fulfilling God's purpose then I will 
have to
> onsider becoming an atheist. I think he was a hypocrite in some 
cases. In
> other cases it's all very well people saying he was a man of faith 
who had
> deeply held beliefs but I think some of those beliefs were not only
> misguided but wrong and verging on evil. Yes I did say evil.
 
Geoff:
I did say that I didn't agree with some of the things the Catholic 
Church holds to be important for faith and I would agree with you 
that some of their doctrines which he upheld were wrong.

I'm not sure I would go as far as to call him a hypocrite, who is a 
person who claims to support ideas or to be a person which they are 
not. I'm not going to itemise your comments because you hold these 
views deeply and some, such as contraception, I would be in agreement 
with. One comment I would make and that is in connection with your 
feelings on his attitude to liberation theology in South America.

There was an interesting programme on BBC television yesterday 
looking at his life and it pointed out that his views were coloured 
by his own experiences in Poland where he lived for 40 years under 
dictatorships, one of them certainly left-wing. Let me say that I 
abhor dictatorships of any political colour or wing.

For me, I believe that any person, "great" or Joe Public, is flawed. 
We are not perfect; we all accept wrong ideas and perform 
questionable actions, whether those affect just ourselves or the 
future of the world. we have only to look at other leaders around the 
world to see the differences in reaction that they produce. I hope I 
don't tread on anyone's toes here but I, as a British observer, find 
myself totally in disagreement over many actions taken by the 
American President and, as a corollary to that, actions taken by our 
Prime Minister. Others will rubbish my views because they are at the 
other side of the spectrum. This is along the lines of "One man's 
freedom fighter is another man's terrorist".