Has anyone read the article in this month's Atlantic?

[hedgehog]

"The Year of Two Popes"

I was so disgusted and frustrated by what I read because it seemed to confirm so much of what I thought has been going on these last few years. I read it to indicate that John Paul II was propped up as a figurehead while a group of Vatican insiders worked as hard as they could to go back to business as usual. Many of the pronouncements that went out with John Paul's signature were written by other people. The article implied that Ratzinger was the de facto Pope for several years before John Paul II died. John Paul would open the door with a sweeping gesture and Ratzinger would slam it shut with an insulting pronouncement. They praised him im public and cut him down in private.

I think John Paul II is a very tragic figure. If he could have broken through his prejudices about liberation theology and met with Oscar Romero, where would we be today? If he could have broken through his grip on orthodoxy and opened himself to consider changes in Holy Orders, where would we be today? While he traveled the world trying to fulfill the promise of Vatican II, those two blind spots allowed him to let others talk him into appointing a hierarchy that is trying to turn the clock back.

[Reverend_Smitty]

1. I didn't read the article...

but I must admit JPII was on the verge of being a great reformer of the church, there were things that bothered me (such as his stance on gays, women in the church, pedophile scandal) but we can pretty much forget about the church going in a progressive direction as long as Benedict is in power.

Just remember this is the same institution that took 400 years to forgive Galileo, change comes very slowly and I'm grateful for all the good things JPII did. Who knows what would have happened if he was healthier for the last few years of his life.