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0 pointsscop5y ago0 comments

(1) JPII was one of the great moral thinkers of the 20th century and I highly recommend that you read some of his work. Not only a thinker, he may be the single man most responsible for the fall of the USSR.

(2) The human institution of the Church, especially where wealthy, is highly corrupt and I say that as a devout Catholic who believes Christ established the Catholic Church as His church (tldr the human & divine Church are separate things).

(3) One of the likely reasons that Benedict abdicated was that he did not want to be "taken advantage of" as he saw various Vatican higher-ups do with the aging and frail JPII.

(4) JPII sadly dismissed cases of allegations. One thing to keep in mind though is when he was growing up in Nazi and then Soviet occupied Poland he would see the occupying forces falsely accuse "resistance" figures of abuse in order to hobble their reputation.

(5) While JPII did make mistakes, it is also my belief that many Vatican figures still-living use him as a scapegoat to hide their own errors. They are doing their best to hide any and all investigation and purely say "this is the fault of people who are now dead." They do not want any oversight. For example, why did they choose to finally release the long-awaited report on Cardinal McCarrick, the most prominent US abuser, the week of the presidential election in the US? Aiming to have it buried!

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3 comments · 2 top-level

gambiting5y ago· 1 in thread

I'm Polish, for the entirety of my childhood and teenage years the man was revered more than Jesus himself. In Poland he's beyond Saint, you can't speak ill of him. And yes, I'm aware of his contribution to the fall of communism and fall of communism in Poland in particular - his election as a Pole was specifically designed to achieve that goal after all, communist government really didn't know what to do about it and it strengthened the Polish church to such an incredible force they became completely untouchable and yes, could be seen as the leading reason for the eventual fall of communism.

However.

Despite the early life reverence, I feel that as a grown adult I do now see him in a completely different light - as a man put into a certain role which he has played correctly, and ultimately he has protected an institution that sheltered abusers, corruption, wealth and which ultimately is a cancer spreading over Poland right now, destroying the society from within.

Also not everything is about US - look what's happening in Poland with cardinal Dziwisz, the closest confidant of the pope - I always suspected he was a piece of shit after disobeying the direct testament of JP2 and making money off of it, but now it's been confirmed he's much much worse than just profiteering off a dead pope.

scopOP5y ago

I appreciate your reply and testimony!

The "image" of JPII is a conundrum. On the one hand, he was extremely charismatic and gave many, many people a very real hope and a sense of purpose during a desolate century. However, he was and is not Jesus and the "media Pope" is a problem the Church has been dealing with since. The Pope must travel and must smile, etc etc whereas we know a Pope certainly has his work cut out for him just in the Vatican. The Church has never taught that every image and utterance of the Pope is divinely wrought, but media has twisted us into an odd place. "You wouldn't dare criticize the Pope, would you? Look how holy and beautiful he is!". (By media and "us" I am referring to believing Catholics; obviously secular media has no problem criticizing the Pope). In the US there has been a marked shift since McCarrick in the laity for holding the bishops more accountable, which albeit it is proceeding at a much slower pace than any of us would like. But a dam has broken, thank God.

Regarding the US, I mentioned the American church & McCarrick as an example of still-living Vatican power-players shifting blame and it was not my intention to say such problems are unique to America. Indeed, Dziwisz and other players boil my blood like little else.

Fumtumi5y ago

And still the church contains pedophiles and homophobes.

We have to see it as a whole thing and as a whole is negative.

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