Good Riddance

He's buried now, so I can say this without being "disrespectful" in a time of mourning, right?

1. Pope John Paul II did contribute to the fall of Communism. Polish labor leaders like Adam Michnik and Lech Walesa contributed a lot more though. Remember that when they die.

2. JPII's AIDS policy was this: Dying of AIDS is awful, but using condoms to keep from getting it, that's even worse. That policy will result in tens of millions of deaths and destruction of African nations that, in a generation, will populated by hundreds of millions of poor, angry, young adults who have never had parents. Family values, my ass.

3. Under JPII's leadership, it became apparent that the Catholic Church actually has mixed feelings on, of all subjects, child-rape. When American bishops met during the media-coverage height of the church child-rape scandal, they actually had to argue about whether they would tolerate child-rapists in the church's midst.

And when it became absolutely clear that Boston Cardinal Bernard Law was an accomplice to hundreds of child-rapes (He repeatedly reassigned rapist priests to new parishs without notifying the law, or the parishes. In essence, Law was handing prey to predators), Pope JPII didn't try to get Law to step down, nor did he encourage him to cooperate with Boston legal authorities. Instead, old JPII promoted Law, giving him a cushy church job in Rome. Law is actually one of the people who will pick a new Pope.

So good riddance, Pope JPII. Great people make mistakes, yes, but not mistakes as big as 2&3.

Papal infallibility, my ass.