Two Popes

John XXIII and John Paul II. Two men who embodied, reflected, and influenced their diametrically opposed times. Each both riding and pushing the cultural wave -- in opposite directions. Each surmounting the crest of world culture's great slosh left and then right. Two men who took the Church in drastic directions many rejoiced in and many decried. Two men you might vehemently disagree with, depending on who you are. Two men you cannot help but admire and love.

- amba

Comments

[Ally]

Oh, I dunno. This Beatle Pope set back the cause of progressive Catholicism (such as it is) by a couple of centuries.

[sharon]

In this case, I am much more ambivalent than you. I can find it in my heart to respect the current Pope's enormous personal integrity, but that's about it. The good he did seems so flimsey and rhetorical compared to the substantive evil that (yes, really!) will live after him....

[amba]

I'm ambivalent too! (Ambiva . . . ) He is a reactionary in so many ways. Yet no one can say he isn't consistent in his "culture of life" (against war and the death penalty). And he seems to be a good, kind, and courageous man.

[achromic]

actually I have been opposed to the ideas of this pope for a long time. While I would never actually wish someone's death I cannot say that I will be overly sad at his going. However I'm sad for those of you who do care about him.

[Tom Strong]

Christopher Hitchens doesn't admire or love him, that's for sure.

Myself, I think the Pope was okay. His failures and successes are well-known, and I'll leave it to historians to sort them out.

However, the amount of respect he gave to Jews was important to me. Living in the U.S. right now, it's easy to see a lot of latent anti-semitism brewing under the evangelical veneer. But for the most part, the Catholic Church has been much kinder to Jews in the past three decades than it ever was in the preceeding two millenniums.