The American Spectator

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Pontiff and Pontificators

4.6.05 @ 12:01AM

NOT OF THE WORLD
Re: George Neumayr's Missing His Holiness:

Regarding media coverage of the Pope's passing, once again you've cut through the BS and hit the nail on the head.

Had you noticed how only a week prior, on Easter when the Pope struggled to speak, liberal print media selected only the most unflattering of photos to accompany their articles?

Keep up the good work,
-- Jim

The pope left a considerable legacy. He’ll be remembered as Pope John Paul II the Great. But, really, who will remember his critics?

The Lord God had a good and faithful servant in the late Pope John Paul II. The pope's modesty, courage and integrity were inspirational. Too, his stance for and lack of shame about the Gospels of Jesus the Christ was refreshing and exemplary.

Of course, such a man would be ridiculed by secular liberals and liberals calling themselves Catholic. It almost cost him his life, most certainly at the hands of someone hired by the Soviets to assassinate him. Even now, the spin occurring in the advocacy media remains how he was too conservative, even a right-wing extremist. Obviously, the late pope’s detractors never read that Jesus Himself said that he, Jesus, came to set the captives free and to proclaim the day of the Lord. The pope simply did what was most important to him.

Karol Jozef Wojtyla was, as you say, other worldly. He chose to serve God, not man. That always offends men, just as Jesus offended men when he was alive for the very same reason. Because he's with the Lord, where Christians long to be, I don’t mourn the pope’s passing. But the world is a smaller, less friendly place today because of his absence. Though not a Catholic, I grieve his passing.

I pray that his replacement is as strong as he was and as committed to the Lord as he was. The last thing Catholicism and the world need now is a liberal, malleable pope.
-- C. Kenna Amos Jr.
Princeton, West Virginia

The left concludes that the late Pope's comments on Iraq and capital punishment make his other comments on abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide a political "wash." The Left concludes that he was just as much "one of them" as "one of us."

But consider that all people, right and left, right and wrong, have their priorities, and how they prioritize their thoughts, statements and actions matters quite a lot. So when the Pope visited St. Louis, his speech, already painfully slurred by Parkinson's, asserted the evil of abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide. He did not give American decisions to go to war or execute its most vicious criminals the same priority as mass murder of the most innocent and/or most defenseless.

As an American and weekly church going Catholic who supports America's decisions to use whatever level of force is necessary against those who represent lethal threats, and to punish criminals in proportion to their crimes, I regret my judgment day will find me less than perfect in at least those regards. But for those without conscience in the matter of abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide, it might be well to work on the problem in this life rather than rely on an almost infinite mercy to save them in the next.
-- Frank Natoli
Newton, New Jersey

LAST RITES
Re: Wlady Pleszczynski's Everyone's Pope:

Beautiful, beautiful tribute to the Holy Father by Wlady Pleszczynski. The best I've read. Says it all. Thanks.
-- John R. Dunlap
San Jose, California

It is so interesting that the howls of protest and denial regarding the life, times, and work of Pope John Paul II come almost exclusively from the "religious left," with the liberal/left Catholics charging forward to the point of the spear. Even some of the National Council of Church's Protestant groups have had the decency to simply go silent. Not so, for left-wing Roman Catholic groups.

Letter to the Editor

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Education, Trade, Nancy Pelosi, Mainstream Media, Business, Sports, Religion, Catholicism, Islam, Abortion, Law, Iraq, NATO, Africa, Communism