Mea Culpa (My Ass)

Gee, I'm sorry. I somehow missed the part where the Pope ended communism. Funny, George Bush the elder takes credit for it; so did Reagan.

Of course, in trying to take credit, they often ignore the pesky details that communism was largely starved out by the late 70s. In that respect, communism was on external life support longer than poor Mrs. Schiavo when all these men rushed to take credit for its fall.

But what would have been so important after the fall of the Berlin wall and the "democratization" of what was Russia was if we'd bothered to pour some support in there. We didn't. And now we've seen a terrible mess. Just last week, the former two halves of Germany announced they wanted a divorce. And Mr. Putin of Russia has the distinction of being even a poor democratic (note: small D) president than our King George.

If you want to gild the lily by saying the Pope did this and the Pope did that, let's balance it. OK? Note that the Pope forbade the use of condoms, a factor in continuing spread of sexually transmitted diseases and in more young kids and poor adults having babies they cannot care for. Talk about how this Pope seemed to want to take the Church back in time rather than forward into the new millennium. Or this Pope who did nothing about the priest sex abuse scandal except tell his American flunkies to stop embarrassing him. Talk about a Pope who did nothing to bring women into the Church in a significant way and did really nothing to elevate a Catholic population in many countries which remains among the poorest and least educated but with one of the largest number of children per family.

And where was the Pope as Africa watched greater and greater percentages of its people - and many Africans have converted to Catholicism - fall to AIDS? The epidemic wasn't so much a case of "promiscuous" homosexuals or prostitution (except out of base need) but from a population that believes having sex with a virgin is a way of protecting themselves from the virus.

Yes, the Pope did some notable things, including traveling to countries that no other Pope had visited. But this same Pope could have stopped American churches from doing what they did: trying to cut their losses and cry bankruptcy when the sex abuse scandal broke. While churches and Catholic schools closed here in record numbers to protect Vatican City, the Pope was still eating his elegant lunches in rooms lined with gold and some of the best artwork looted - and yes, bought with parishioners' money - from the rest of the world.

In short, I'll grant that this Pope did a few good things. But for one of the longest reigning Popes and for one who got to benefit from having the most exposure because of TV and other media, it's actually sad how little he accomplished toward bringing his "flock" to the same moral, spiritual, educational, artistic, and human richness of experience the Pope and his Vatican City consorts enjoy.