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Pope John Paul II’s silver anniversary inspired overwrought praise from many quarters
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POPE JOHN PAUL II’s silver anniversary this month inspired praise for the pontiff from many quarters. The Dalai Lama said the world would be a better place if more people were as dedicated to peace as the pope. Political leaders around the world issued statements of gratitude to the pope for his life’s work. President George W. Bush, for example, declared, "The United States and the world are better because of his dedication to sharing his wisdom, guidance, and faith." There’s no question that the pope, who leads the world’s one billion Catholics and was named man of the year by Time magazine in 1994, is enormously influential. He’s used his influence in pursuit of noble ideals — namely, social and economic justice. But the words of wonder directed toward the pontiff this month have an emperor-has-no-clothes quality to them. After all, how do we reconcile the fantastic praise directed at him with the Vatican’s response to the clergy-sex-abuse scandal; the Rwandan genocide of the mid 1990s, during which Roman Catholic priests took part in atrocities; the Vatican’s ongoing jihad against gay men and lesbians; and the Vatican’s criminal denunciation of the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV? We can’t. Although the pope took the occasion of his silver anniversary to issue a 192-page missive telling bishops to obey Church dogma and deal with abuses by priests — which many saw as a reference to the clergy-sex-abuse scandal — it’s clear that the Vatican still doesn’t comprehend the magnitude of the abuse. Rome still blames the media for exaggerating the scope of the crisis. As recently as this month, the Roman Catholic bishops’ conference of England and Wales accused the BBC of having an anti-Catholic bias for airing a documentary titled Kenyon Confronts, about cases of clergy sex abuse dating back 20 years. Meanwhile, a survey of clergy sex abuse throughout 195 dioceses in the United States commissioned by the National Review Board of the Catholic Bishops Conference is set to be released soon. Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the US Roman Catholic Bishops, warned this week that the numbers in the survey will be shocking. But he said the reason why the numbers will shock is because they will not be put into context. As if the thought of thousands of children being molested by priests — even as their bishops and cardinals were aware of the abuse — isn’t shocking enough. He added that similar surveys were needed in school, medical, and sports communities — as if any of these groups will ever be found to have abused their charges and then actively worked to cover up that abuse in numbers even approaching those of the Roman Catholic Church. The cover-up of the clergy-sex-abuse scandal should be enough to stain the reputation of Pope John Paul II. But an even more disturbing chapter in Vatican cover-ups involves the Rwandan genocide of 1994, during which members of the ruling Hutu party slaughtered 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus over a three-month period. At least 20 Roman Catholic priests, all Hutus, and two nuns have been accused of, at minimum, failing to provide assistance to Tutsis in need, and, at most, participating in some of the killings personally. In many of these cases, the Catholic Church hindered prosecutors’ efforts to bring the accused to trial, arranging for their shelter outside of Rwanda. Take the case of Sisters Gertrude Mukangango and Maria Kisito, who were accused of inciting Hutu marauders to kill Tutsis taking shelter in a barn at the Sovu monastery and actually providing gasoline to the Hutus, who burned the barn down. The Vatican defended the two nuns, who fled to Belgium to escape prosecution. They were tried there, however, and found guilty. What remains scandalous is that the Vatican has charged that attempts to bring Roman Catholic prelates accused of genocide to justice amounts to nothing more than Catholic-bashing. It took years for the Church to face up to its shortcomings regarding Jews and the Holocaust during World War II, and this pope has played a major role in that effort. But on the whole, the Church seems intent on denying past transgressions. How many years will it take for the Church to face the facts? Meanwhile, the pope’s hostility toward gay men and lesbians seems to grow by the year. While his dicta on homosexuality go hand and hand with the perversion that passes for Catholic teachings on sexuality, the pope’s social-justice legacy is irreparably tainted by his stated belief that it is an act of child abuse to let homosexuals raise children. Given the Vatican’s coddling of sexually predatory priests, it would seem that John Paul II needs a lesson in what child abuse actually is. And then there’s the dissembling on the efficacy of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV. Despite scientific evidence that the condom is an excellent barrier to prevent the transmission of HIV, along comes Vatican spokesman Alfonso Lopez Trujullo, who heads the Vatican’s office on the family. Trujullo claims that the AIDS virus is "roughly 450 times smaller" than sperm, or "spermatozoon," as Trujullo put it, and "can easily pass" through a condom. The pope and his Vatican have wide influence in Africa, where 17 million have already died of AIDS and another 25 million are infected with HIV. This willful spread of, at best, superstition and misinformation or, at worst, lies seems almost criminal. What do you think? Send an e-mail to letters[a]phx.com
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