Talk Elections

Once again, a great man; not only towards the Jews, but also on human rights, peace, and opposition to Communism.

Major FF

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A truly great man and a beloved brother in Christ.  I still miss him. 

He was also a wonderful poet.

Horrible person, even as Popes go.

A generally poor opinion. He had his good points (he reached out to Jews in particular, and helped take down the Evil Empire), but was very rigid theologically. I still can't forgive him for spending time opposing condom distribution in Africa to fight AIDS. He couldn't quite manage to really apologize for St Bartholomew's massacre however. I guess reaching to Protestants was a bridge too far, particularly since the Evangelicals are converting Spanish American (and Brazil) in droves.

Lean HP given his opposing condom distribution in africa.

Torie just said the type of thing I say all the time. Now how long before people start screaming about how he's a bigot?

Huge FF

He is not given enough credit for his reparations of relations with all the various religions that he re-opened relations with. He also apologized for a lot of the Catholic Church's misdeeds over the past century's including involvement in the slave trade, violations of womens rights, inactivity during the holocaust, and for the crusades.

Sure, he was a conservative on Church doctrine and reproduction. Being against contraception and women ordination was a long held position of every pope, though.

I applaud him for his condemnation of Liberation Theology and not going overboard on the Latin American Bishops that followed it. He could have excommunicated all those bishops, but he didn't.

He was also a critic of Communism. Gorbechev once said that the fall of communism would have been impossible if not for PJP2

He was also a harsh critic of the Iraq war and the death penalty, positions which liberals don't give him enough credit on.

O.K. I'm done.

Super FF. The Church may never have another leader like JPII.

I am awfully disturbed by this trend.  Catholic countries, particularly down South America way, are so much more free than the US (the prime example of an Evangelical Protestant controlled country).  One can only hope these freaks never become the majority in places like Brazil.

Despite his open support for zionism, FF

No doubt you had Venezuela in mind, no?  :P  One man's "freedom" is another man's strait jacket.

No, I hadn't Venezuala in mind.  I was thinking of many South American countries toleration of 'vice', particularly prostitution - Brazil and I think several others.

Well, a number of Jews quickly forgot all the help that Pius XII had provided them simply because he didn't support the creation of Israel.  With the advantage of hindsight, I think he was right, but its there now, so....

I'm more bothered by Pius XII's reluctance to speak out against Hitler, like his predecessor did.

In places where the priests did speak out publicly against Hitler, the SS came and rounded up everyone in the Church, which often included Jews being hidden there.  With some 6,000 Jews being hidden in the immediate vicinity of the Vatican, many in the Vatican itself, what exactly would have been gained if Pius had spoken out?  What if he had and the Nazis had used it as a pretext to investigate every Catholic Church and monastery under their control in Europe?  Do you have any idea how many hundreds of thousands of Jews would have been discovered and rounded up?  Hitler formed two plans to make Pius "disappear" and replace him with a puppet fascist, which, admittedly, finding one wouldn't have been hard, since there were plenty of ardent fascists amongst the bishops of Spain, Germany and Italy.

People like Churchill had the luxury of being able to speak out.  They were running a very public war.  Pius wasn't.  His speaking out might have earned him a little bit of praise from historians, but at what cost at the time?

And it is not even as though he didn't speak out at all.  He did, he just didn't directly condemn the Nazis, because he didn't want to grant them a pretext for acting.

Very well put. Couldn't have said it better myself.

I was actually in the midst of posting a long post about this and then I saw yours and how much better It was so I just stopped.

What I find particularly disturbing about all these allegations about Pius during WWII is that they are all based on his "silence", and totally ignore the some 200,000 Jewish lives that he helped save by ordering that Jews be helped and hidden.  Just goes to show how much people value words over actions.

I can see how some people can think negatively about Pius if they didn't understand the circumstances he was in at the the time. Though I totally agree with you.

one of the greatest FF's of the 20th century

Freedom Fighter. His positions on abortion, gay marriage, contraception, woman priests and homosexuality were awful but the struggle against communism, discussing with other religions are enough good forget the ultra-conservative positions.

I suppose than each pope has who says that. Perhaps than the Catholic Church would be in a better position if their ideas were more modern.

FF. I especially agree with his actions within the Church - giving apology where due, but not being afraid to be orthodox against heretics of the right and left.

Hmmmm... looks like you and I are going to get along.

Great discussion about Latin America.  I don't particularly care for Opebo's characterization of the United States in his op, but I think he probably had Guatemala in mind.  Efrain Rios Montt was a very outspoken Protestant Evangelical -- a Pentecostal, I think, but I could be wrong.  He used his faith, not unlike the "good Christians" in Uganda's "Lord's Resistance Army" to perpetuate terror and murder across his country.

Often, Roman Catholic priests and nuns stood in opposition to Rios-Montt.  And paid for it. 

Still, let's be completely candid here.  No church, denomination or religion is without its shameful, embarassing and even brutal adherants.  Any person whose faith instructs them to hate people, deny human beings basic human rights, discriminate against minority religions or other groups or use violence as a means of bringing about some sort of apocalypse is a sick and shameful example of "a person of faith".  I don't care if they are Evangelical Christian, Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, Muslim or Hindu.