Pope John Paul II (16 ottob 1978 anni – 2 apr 2005 anni)
Descrizione:
Pope Says Individuals, Not Church, to Blame
In a letter addressed to church leaders, civil authorities, and the population of Rwanda, Pope John Paul II tried to absolve the Roman Catholic Church from responsibility for the genocide there in 1994. “The church in itself cannot be held responsible for the misdeeds of its members who have acted against evangelical law,” he claimed. However, the pope also stated: “All the members of the church who have sinned during the genocide must have the courage to bear the consequences of the deeds that they have committed.” This is apparently the first time the pope has publicly addressed the charge that priests in Rwanda participated in and actively encouraged the slaughter that took the lives of some 500,000 people and the charge that the Catholic hierarchy took no action to stop it. Vatican commentator Luigi Accattoli, writing in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, said that the pope’s statement for Catholics not to try to escape justice “touches a sensitive spot,” in that “among those accused of genocide, there are also priests who have taken refuge abroad.” Most of the people in Rwanda are Catholic.
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JUST three days before Christmas 1993, Pope John Paul II acknowledged that the celebration of Christmas is not rooted in the Bible. Regarding the date December 25, the pope admitted: “On that day in pagan antiquity, the birthday of the ‘Invincible Sun’ was celebrated to coincide with the winter solstice.” How, then, did Christmas begin? The pope continued: “It seemed logical and natural to Christians to replace that feast with the celebration of the only and true Sun, Jesus Christ.”
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Pope Apologizes
Pope John Paul II has apologized twice to the African continent for the slave trade. The first time was in February, during the pope’s trip to Senegal. At that time the Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported that the pope implored “‘the forgiveness of heaven’ and the forgiveness of Africa for the historic crime of slavery with which even Christians . . . were spotted.” The second apology, about three months later, was given during his visit to São Tomé. At the Vatican, the pope explained that “since the church is a community made up of sinners too, over the centuries there have been transgressions of the precept of love. . . . They were failings on the part of individuals and groups that adorned themselves with the name of Christians.” Commenting on the “papal apologies,” the daily newspaper La Repubblica said that the pope “spoke of sin on the part of Christians in general, but he could also have spoken of popes, of Roman congregations, and of bishops and clergymen. This history of slavery, in fact, is mixed with responsibility on the part of the Catholic hierarchy too.”
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“Church’s Cry of Alarm Against the Jehovah’s Witnesses,” rang the headline of the newspaper La Repubblica of Rome, Italy. The newspaper was reporting on a Catholic Church convention held in Bologna last November. Its theme was: “Christ Our God and Our Hope: Christians in the face of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.” The article explains: “With the approval of Pope Wojtyla [John Paul II], preparations are being made to mobilize dioceses, parishes, and believers against” the Witnesses. Why such concern by the Catholic Church? “The worries exist primarily,” the report continues, “because every year they ‘rob’ at least 10,000 faithful from the Catholic Church, a record.”
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MIRACLE WATER?
“The pope and the bishop of Lourdes have different opinions on the value and significance of the water of Lourdes, and they expressed them the same day,” observed the Italian newspaper La Stampa recently. During a Mass held in honor of the Madonna of Lourdes, France, the pope declared that water issuing from the spring is “a genuine instrument of the marvelous, most copious and supernatural action that Mary performs,” adding, “The water of the spring of Lourdes, with its miraculous power,” compares to that of the pool of Siloam that Jesus once used when he healed a man. Yet, that same day, the bishop of Lourdes, apparently concerned about commercial trafficking in the water, stated: “It is not magic water. In fact, calling it ‘miracle water’ is misleading.” Italy’s Panorama magazine notes that the water “is not bacteriologically pure, and in fact the stratum from which it springs runs a grave risk of contamination.” But for the traffickers of Lourdes, the water “is like oil for Texas or Iran. It’s the main resource,” says Panorama.
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When the Pope Asks Forgiveness
Between 1980 and 1996, John Paul II ‘recognized the Church’s historic faults or asked forgiveness’ at least 94 times, says Vatican commentator Luigi Accattoli in his book Quando il papa chiede perdono (When the Pope Asks Forgiveness). According to Accattoli, “in the Catholic Church, only the pope can rightly make a mea culpa.” And this he has done, referring to the most controversial pages of Catholic history—the Crusades, wars, support of dictatorships, division in the churches, anti-Semitism, the Inquisitions, the Mafia, and racism. In a memorandum sent in 1994 to the cardinals (which is considered by some to be the most important document of the pontificate), John Paul II proposed “a general and millennial confession of sins.”
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The pope survived being shot. After leaving the hospital, he was taken back for two months, “suffering a great deal.” Why? A potentially fatal cytomegalovirus infection from the blood he received.
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Recently, a Hong Kong newspaper carried the headline “Church ‘must be part of world’” and quoted Pope John Paul as saying that “the Catholic Church desired to be part of the modern world.”
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Certainly, Pope John Paul II had warm words for homosexuals when he declared: “They are in the heart of the church.”
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The Pope on Military Service
Last year the pope met with more than 7,000 military cadets at the Rome garrison of Cecchignola. At that time four young officers representing the garrison asked the pope whether military service is compatible with the Christian conscience. Specifically, according to the Vatican City newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, they asked: “Can one be a faithful Christian and, at the same time, a faithful soldier?” In response the pope said: “There is no basic difficulty or impossibility in uniting the Christian vocation with that of military service. If we look at the latter positively, it can be seen as a beautiful, worthy and fine thing.”
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Pope John Paul II evidently also thinks that God has left it up to humans to rule themselves as best they can, since while visiting Kenya some ten years ago, he said: “An important challenge for the Christian is that of the political life.” He continued: “In the state citizens have a right and duty to share in the political life. . . . It would be a mistake to think that the individual Christian should not be involved in these areas of life.”
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“A Source of Great Suffering for the Church”
In his audience with the bishops of eastern Canada, John Paul II turned his attention to sexual abuses committed by priests. As reported in L’Osservatore Romano, the pope told the Canadian prelates that “the scandal given by those members of the clergy and those Religious who have failed in this regard has been a source of great suffering for the Church in Canada.” He added that he had prayed “for those who have been victims of sexual misconduct, as well as for those who have been guilty of it.” Some believe that abolishing obligatory celibacy for priests could both contribute to the reduction of scandals connected with sexual abuse by the clergy and resolve “the shortage or uneven distribution of priests” mentioned by the pope. But according to John Paul II, “the difficulties involved today in keeping celibacy are not sufficient reason to overturn the Church’s conviction regarding its value and appropriateness.”
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Pope John Paul II criticized sects in general, and Jehovah’s Witnesses in particular, when he stated: “The almost aggressive zeal with which some seek out new adherents, going from house to house, or stopping passersby on street corners, is a sectarian counterfeit of apostolic and missionary ardor.”
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And in January 1994, Pope John Paul II said that it is “not the time to be ashamed of the Gospel, it’s time to preach it from the rooftops.”
Apparently these intermittent calls for evangelizers have fallen on deaf ears. An article in the Australian newspaper Illawarra Mercury stated: “Prominent South Coast Catholics are not keen to adopt the Jehovah’s Witness-type approach to their faith.” One man said that evangelism is simply “not part of the Catholic psyche.” Another reasoned: “It’s good for the Church to promote itself, but not through doorknocking. Perhaps through schools or letterbox drops would be better.” Even the dean of a local cathedral was not quite sure how to interpret the pope’s remarks. “We would encourage people to live out the Gospel they know through their own lives,” he said. “Whether that means doorknocking is another thing.” The headline of the news article sums it up well: “Catholics won’t heed Pope’s call to preach.”
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For hundreds of years, some of Galileo’s works remained on the index of books that Catholics were not permitted to read. But in 1979, the church reconsidered the action taken by the Roman Inquisition 300 years earlier. Finally, in 1992, Pope John Paul II acknowledged that the Catholic Church had wrongly condemned Galileo.
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Changed View of Hell
For centuries the Catholic Church has taught that hell is a place where the souls of wicked people suffer eternal torment. Apparently, that has changed. Hell “is not a punishment imposed externally by God,” says Pope John Paul II, “but a development of premises already set by people in this life.” So reports L’Osservatore Romano. “Rather than a place,” the pontiff says, “hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy.” He adds that “eternal damnation” is not God’s work; rather, “it is the creature who closes himself to [God’s] love.”
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Another papal visitor, Pope John Paul II, addressing the UN in October 1979, said: “I hope the United Nations will ever remain the supreme forum of peace and justice.” Significantly, the pope gave very little attention to Jesus Christ or to God’s Kingdom in his speech. During his visit to the United States in September 1987, as reported by The New York Times, “John Paul spoke at length about the positive role of the United Nations in promoting . . . ‘new worldwide solidarity.’”
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During a second papal visit to Colombia in July 1986—this time in the person of John Paul II—the head of Roman Catholicism made a special appeal to Colombian youths when he said: “You are the salt of the earth! You are the light of the world!” However, he did not clarify what that enlightening message was that Catholic youths were to communicate to all Colombia, Latin America, and the rest of the world.
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Rome continues to be a world center for Babylonish religion. This was clearly apparent in 1986 when the world’s religious leaders answered the call of the pope of Rome by assembling with him at Assisi, near Rome, to pray in behalf of the International Year of Peace proclaimed by the United Nations.
8. (a) How did Babylon the Great suffer a great fall, and since when is this in evidence? (b) What shows that the prayers of religious leaders for peace go unanswered?
8 However, Babylon the Great has suffered a great fall! Since 1919 this has been in evidence in the dwindling support for false religion worldwide. Atheistic communism now controls large areas of the earth. Today’s youth are being taught evolution, which contradicts God’s Word. In Protestant Europe few people attend church anymore, and an itinerant pope is struggling to hold his Catholic empire together. Prayers to the multiplicity of gods of the world’s religions obviously go unanswered. Ruth L. Sivard reported: “Twenty-two wars were underway in 1987, more wars than in any previous year in recorded history. The total death toll in these wars so far is at least 2,200,000—and rising fast.”* How ineffectual the Assisi prayer meeting proved to be!
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Pope Declares “Yahweh” to Be the Only God
“God Reveals His Name to Mankind.” So read a boldfaced headline across the top of the page in the Vatican journal L’Osservatore Romano. Under it was the text of a homily given by Pope John Paul II while visiting St. Leonard Murialdo Parish in Rome. “In the passage from Exodus, God lets us know his name,” began the pope. Then, after quoting Exodus chapter 3, verses 13 and 14, in which God told Moses to tell the Israelites, “I AM sent me to you,” the pope added: “This word, ‘I am’, which is also expressed in the word Yahweh, says that God is the existent and transcendent One . . . From this we are given to understand that Yahweh is none other than one, the only God.”
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