John Paul II dies

Niall001 · Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2005 6:43 am Post subject: John Paul II dies

A great leader of this world

The death of Pope John Paul II leaves the whole world in mourning for one of the great leaders of our time. He was an inspirational figure who practised what he preached, even if his pleas for social justice, strict standards of sexual morality and the rejection of unbridled capitalism were more often than not ignored. He was an outstanding pastor who visibly wore himself out in his mission to make this a better world and convince men and women of all faiths and none that their ultimate destiny transcends the joys and sorrows of everyday life.

Even for those who did not share his strongly held Christian beliefs, there was inspiration in itself to watch him defy debilitating illnesses to preach a unifying message of solidarity to a world divided between differing creeds. It was an impossible task humanly speaking but he never shirked it.

He was consistent in his pro-life stance which not only condemned abortion but also the death penalty and war as an instrument of foreign policy. He believed the medieval concept of the "just war" was outmoded and he spoke out against the two Gulf wars in spite of US displeasure. He campaigned with some success for the cancellation of official debts incurred by the poorest countries.

He saw himself as Christ's representative on earth and reached out to people of all religions and cultures in a way none of his predecessors would have dreamed of. He seemed to be indeed a Man of Destiny as he inspired, first his native Poland during the Solidarity rebellion, and then the rest of central and eastern Europe under communist domination, to struggle non-violently to replace the harsh regimes controlled from Moscow. He was arguably the single most important figure in reuniting Europe and bringing the Cold War to an end.

His vision of a Christian Europe to replace the division of the Cold War period, in which east and west would unite under a vaguely defined slogan of "solidarity", has not come to pass. He saw the enlarged European Union which has become a reality as a poor substitute imbued with materialistic and godless values. But he believed it still has the potential to rise to its true vocation.

He narrowly survived an assassination attempt in St Peter's Square and later visited his would-be murderer in prison to offer forgiveness in the true Christian spirit. He did more than any other pope to try to undo centuries of anti-semitism which tainted official Catholicism for far too long. He apologised humbly in the name of the Catholic Church for its historical wrongs. He was the first to visit a Muslim country and open a dialogue with that religion. In this he was an inspiring figure in an age which had seen the depths to which so-called civilised man could descend and which wondered was there any place for a loving God.

Behind this charismatic figure who had once been a poet, an actor and an athlete before he dedicated his life to God, there was a strict moralist whose conservatism disappointed many Catholics hoping for a greater understanding of what it is to live in the real world of broken marriages, dwindling clergy, sexual freedom and Aids-stricken African countries. In this area of Catholic morality, Pope John Paul would brook no dissent. Theologians who tried to re-interpret traditional Catholic teaching on sexual matters to accommodate these developments in the world of the 20th and 21st centuries and in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council were silenced.

Where Pope Paul VI had shown compassion to priests seeking release from their vows and permission to marry, Pope John Paul for years set his face against what he saw as betrayal. Even to discuss priestly celibacy or the ordaining of women priests would not be tolerated under a pope who had once written plays about the tenderness of human love.

He was capable of change, however, in other matters. At first in his long pontificate, he showed little sympathy for the dilemma of the clergy in Latin American countries ministering to a peasantry and urban proletariat shamefully exploited by nominally Catholic dictators or plutocrats who often had the favour of the official Church. Liberation theology which drew on Marxist philosophy to illustrate the class divisions in Latin America gradually became more acceptable to him. As he put it, "if there is no hope for the poor, there will be no hope for anyone, not even for the so-called rich".

Pope John Paul's dream of a reconciliation, or "common house", between Rome and the Orthodox churches of eastern Europe - a split in Christianity which long pre-dated the Reformation - was one of his most painful failures. Centuries of mutual distrust and even antagonism would take more than the sudden collapse of the communist regimes of central and eastern Europe to heal.

As with any human endeavour, Pope John Paul's life and work was a mixture of success and failure, but with him it was on a heroic scale across the world. He saw his latter years as a final phase where, in his own words, "the Pope has to suffer so that every family and the world may see that there is a higher gospel, the gospel of suffering by which the future is prepared".

© The Irish Times

Grief and praise mingle as world pays tribute to pope
(AFP)

4 April 2005

VATICAN CITY - From Catholic bastions in Latin America, Europe and Africa, to Hindu-majority India, Orthodox Greece and mainly Muslim Indonesia, the world united Sunday to mourn the passing of Pope John Paul II, eulogizing him as a towering figure and a messenger of peace and mutual tolerance.

Britain and the United States led the West’s tributes to a pope who played a crucial role in bringing down communism in Eastern Europe.

“The world has lost a religious leader who was revered across people of all faiths and none,” said British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

“He was an inspiration, a man of extraordinary faith, dignity and courage. He never wavered, never flinched, in the struggle for what he thought was good and right.”

US President George W. Bush, called the pope, who died Saturday, ”one of history’s great moral leaders”.

“The Catholic Church has lost its shepherd, the world has lost a champion of human freedom, and a good and faithful servant of God has been called home,” Bush, a Methodist who had clashed with the pope over his war on Iraq, said from the White House.

Bush underscored John Paul II’s role in launching a democratic revolution that swept eastern Europe and remembered him as an ardent advocate of “a culture of life,” one of Bush’s favoured themes in the deeply religious United States.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called the pontiff “a tireless advocate of peace, a true pioneer in interfaith dialogue and a strong force for critical self-evaluation by the Church itself.”

Across Latin America, home to nearly half of the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics, leaders announced official days of mourning and recalled with emotion the impact his papal visits had on their countries.

But in a sign of the 84-year-old-pontiff’s worldwide appeal across religious lines, communist China and Cuba, predominantly Muslim Indonesia, Egypt and Albania and majority Hindu India also offered heart-felt tributes.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak declared an official three-day period of mourning, underlining “the pope’s support for Arab causes and the Palestinian people”.

Egyptian Sheikh Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi -- seen as the highest authority in Sunni Islam -- said: “The death of the pope is a great loss for the Catholic Church and the Muslim world.”

In Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-populated nation where Roman Catholics make up only five percent of the population, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he would send three government ministers to the pope’s funeral.

Majority Muslim Albania also decreed a day of national mourning for Monday and its president, Alfred Moisiu, lauded John Paul II for helping Albanians “regain their faith in God and religious institutions after long years of communist dictatorship.

In Hindu-majority India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday called the pontiff a “people’s Pope” who especially endeared himself to Indians when he initiated the process of granting sainthood to Nobel laureate Mother Teresa, who founded the Calcutta-based Missionaries of Charity that cared for the sick and poor in the eastern Indian city.

Mother Teresa died in 1997 and was beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 19, 2003 in one of the fastest beatifications in Catholic history.

The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, the Dalai Lama, said he had a “deep appreciation for the pope’s mission to bring peace to the world.”

While Russia joined the world in mourning the death of Pope John Paul II Sunday, few public figures in a country that the pontiff never got his fervent wish to visit mentioned his key role in ending the Cold War.

President Vladimir Putin hailed the pope as “an outstanding figure of our times, with whom a whole era is associated.”

“I retain the warmest memories of (my) meetings with the pontiff. He was a wise and responsive man, open to dialogue,” the Interfax news agency quoted the statement as saying.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexy II, expressed grief at the death of the pontiff and voiced hope “the coming of a new era in the life of the Roman Catholic Church will help restore relations of mutual respect and brotherly Christian love between our Churches,” in a letter to the Holy See posted on the Church’s website.

Alexy II, who accused the Catholic Church of proselytizing in Russia and the former Soviet republics, had repeatedly blocked visits by John Paul II.

The head of the Greek Orthodox Church, which had long been at odds with the Vatican, also expressed sympathy over the death of John Paul II, calling him a “standard-bearer of freedom and human rights.”

“A great pope is dead, rightly described as a standard-bearer of freedom and human rights” and the Greek Church expresses “its deep sympathy to the Holy See and all Catholics of the world,” Archbishop Christodoulos said in a statement.

The spiritual leader of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Bartholomew I, also hailed him as a “man of vision” who worked for improved ties between the long-divided Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

Italy’s President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi said that Italians were mourning “the loss of a father.”

Spain, a mainly Catholic nation, expressed its “profound grief,” as Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said the demise of the pontiff “represents the loss of one of the most towering world figures in recent history.”

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said John Paul II was a great modern figure who played a decisive role in ending decades of division and oppression in Europe.

Catholics and Protestants, rival and often fractious communities in Northern Ireland, also united in prayer to remember John Paul II as a moral pillar for humanity and a messenger of peace.

The head of Ireland’s Roman Catholic Church, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland Sean Brady, said the pontiff was in advance of his time and his 26-year papacy would |eave an ”immense” legacy for the world.

Church of Ireland Primate Robin Eames, the senior Protestant official in Northern Ireland, said the pope had shown “immense personal courage in fulfilling his duties” as his health failed.

President Jacques Chirac said all of France was in mourning while German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said that John Paul II had ”changed our world” and played a crucial role in the development of a peaceful Europe.

Tributes also poured in from Africa.

“Pope John Paul II was not only the leader of Catholics around the world, including Nigeria, but also showed commitment and courage in his quest for mutual tolerance, harmony and unity among the world’s religions,” a spokeswoman for Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said.

Nigeria’s 130 million strong population is divided roughly evenly between Christians and Muslims, with around 20 million Catholics.

The head of the African Union Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, called John Paul II “one of the most fervent champions of Africa”.

In strife-torn Ivory Coast, President Laurent Gbagbo paid tribute to the “memory of a tireless pilgrim for liberty who until his last breath fought for the deliverance of man.”

South African President Thabo Mbeki expressed appreciation for the pope’s role in pursuit of global peace, development, and cooperation, including his support for the development and rebirth of Africa, the world’s poorest continent.

In Asia, church bells tolled across the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines for the pope, who was revered there as a champion of the poor and oppressed.

A frosty message came from China, which demands that the Vatican break off relations with its arch-rival Taiwan.

“We hope that the Vatican under the new pope will create conditions conducive to the improvement of relations with China,” a foreign ministry statement said.

In the Middle East, both Israel, where the pope made a historic visit in 2000, and the Palestinians paid homage to John Paul II.

Israel praised the pope’s work to promote understanding among peoples, with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon saying: “The world has lost one of the great leaders of our age. He was a man of peace ... who worked for reconciliation between people.”

“A great man who left his mark all over the world has departed,” said Tayeb Abdel Rahim, secretary general of the Palestinian Authority.

In Lebanon, where 38 percent of the 3.5 million population are Christians, most of them Catholics, President Emile Lahoud, a Maronite Christian, said his country had lost “a great friend” with the death of Pope John Paul II.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II said the pope “contributed to spreading the principles of tolerance, dialogue and human rights throughout the world as well as bringing together followers of different faiths and religions”.

www.khaleejtimes.com/Disp...n=theworld

World leaders echo tributes for pope
The Associated Press
Sunday, April 3, 2005

WARSAW, Poland

Mourners flooded the streets of Warsaw early Sunday, carrying flowers and lighting candles for Pope John Paul II in an outpouring of grief and admiration that was repeated around the world.

People from every continent and of many religions found something in the life of the pope to praise — the way he inspired resistance to communism in his Polish homeland, tried to build bridges between faiths, or championed the cause of the poor.

World leaders echoed the tributes of the ordinary people whose lives the pope touched during 26 years as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Feelings were intense in Poland, where the Church of St. Anne in the heart of the Polish capital could not hold all those wanting to pay their respects to John Paul. Several thousand knelt outside in prayer.

‘‘These are tears of joy,’’ said seamstress Iolanta Szarkowiec as she wept.

‘‘The pope did all he could for Poland. He brought God back to communist Poland, and then the feeling of freedom.’’

On the Indonesian island of Nias — devastated by last week’s magnitude 8.7 earthquake that killed hundreds of people — a priest led special prayers at Santa Maria Cathedral. Nias and other islands off the coast of tsunami-ravaged Sumatra are among the few Christian-majority areas in Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim nation.

‘‘Physically, he has gone, but his spirit still lives on among Catholics around the world,’’ said Father Michael To.

Bells tolled in churches everywhere when the pope’s death Saturday night was announced. In Paris, the bells of Notre Dame Cathedral sounded 84 times — once for each year of the pontiff’s life.

Although his death has been widely expected since a recent series of medical problems, the passing of the pontiff overwhelmed many.

In Canada, Marc Cardinal Ouellet, archbishop of Quebec, spoke haltingly while tears ran down his cheeks. ‘‘We all feel like orphans at this moment,’’ he said.

At Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral, worshippers dropped to their knees and wept when news of the death was announced.

In China, where worship is allowed only in government-sanctioned churches, believers sang hymns and prayed in Beijing’s Southern Cathedral at Xuan Wu Men.

‘‘God has called him to rest in his arms,’’ the Rev. Sun Shangen said of the pope. ‘‘Today let’s keep him in our thoughts during our prayers.’’

The Beijing government, which cut off ties with the Vatican shortly after the officially atheist communist party took power in 1949, made no official comment.

The Dalai Lama, in a message of condolence issued by his office in exile in the Himalayan resort town of Dharmsala, north India, said ‘‘Pope John Paul II was a man I held in high regard. His experience in Poland, then a communist country, and my own difficulties with communists, gave us a common ground.’’

In India’s eastern city of Calcutta, nuns of the Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa, grieved in hushed prayers Sunday. Clad in customary white and blue bordered saris, some of the nuns wept as they knelt, heads bowed, wiping away tears.

‘‘Pope John Paul II wrote history,’’ German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said. ‘‘Through his work, and through his impressive personality he changed our world.’’

U.S. President George W. Bush said: ‘‘the world has lost a champion of human freedom, and a good and faithful servant of God has been called home.’’

French President Jacques Chirac said history ‘‘will retain the imprint and the memory of this exceptional sovereign pontiff,’’ while British Prime Minister

Tony Blair said John Paul ‘‘never wavered, never flinched, in the struggle for what he thought was good and right.’’

Patriarch Alexy II, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, said John Paul ‘‘personally, and his works and ideas, have had a strong impact on the world.’’

Tensions increased between the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and communist restrictions on religion faded. The Russian Orthodox leadership accused Catholics of poaching converts, and the dispute blocked a papal visit to Russia, a long-held wish of the pontiff.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, praised Pope John Paul II’s efforts to reach a reconciliation between the two churches.

‘‘Pope John Paul II envisioned the restoration of the unity of the Christians and he worked for its realization,’’ Bartholomew said in a statement.

In Colombia, President Alvaro Uribe declared a period of national mourning and ordered flags across the country to fly at half staff. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva declared seven days of national mourning.

Even in communist Cuba, Fidel Castro’s Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque expressed ‘‘profound sorrow’’ and fondly recall the pope’s visit to the island seven years ago.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said the pope will be remembered ‘‘as a distinguished religious figure, who devoted his life to defending the values of peace, freedom and equality.’’

Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad also expressed their sorrow.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon praised John Paul for working to bring about a historic reconciliation between Jews and Catholics.

‘‘Pope John Paul II was a man of peace, a friend of the Jewish nation,’’ said Sharon.

www.iht.com/articles/2005...pope2.html

I'm sad to see him die, but glad that he passed on in the way that he did.

He was one of the most important men of the past century. The work he did to liberate the poor and oppressed was remarkable. You have to respect how he stood up to everyone. He didn't care if they were a capitalist or a communist, a dictator or a democrat, he told you what his opinion was and he told it straight.

You really have to admire the work he did with Muslims and Jews in particular. He realised that making announcements and writings encyclicals was one thing, but you had to make it real for people. When he entered mosques and synagogues, he made the messages real to ordinary people.

I actually laughed when I seen him lecturing George Bush on the evils of war. The poor man was squirming like a schoolboy called into the principal's office for misbehaving.

He was a great man who made the world a better place. He will get exactly what he deserves.

Let us agree, there is no one single reality. Not upon this stage, not in this world, all is in the mind... imagination is the only truth. Because it cannot be contradicted except by other imaginations - Richard Matheson

There are no conclusive indications by which waking life can be distinguished from sleep - Rene Descartes

MonsterDick · Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2005 12:04 pm Post subject: Re: John Paul II dies

Just ONE question, perhaps dictated out of mere curiosity: did any Pope in history manage to actually STOP one single war, be it a major, minor, forgotten, or whatever else war?

History repeating.

Rob


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