About the Pope
Apr. 8th, 2005 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redfiona99You all knew I was far too opinionated to keep quiet on that topic for long.
First for a declaration of interests - I'm not Catholic, the nearest I got was that the kindergarten I went to was run by nuns. I'm non-aligned Protestant, except I haven't been in a church for something that isn't hatching, matching or dispatching or tourism since I was 11.
I'm not Polish, but I have been there and this is important later on.
~~~~
I'm 20 so I've only ever known one Pope. He was the one steadfast point in an increasingly crazy world. And it's going to be very strange when the Pope isn't John Paul II.
Like I said I'm not Catholic and there have been times when I've not agreed with the Pope's stance on an issue, contraception being the most obvious one, but I always got the feeling that he said what he did, not out of some attempt to gain favour or curry this country or anothers belief, but because he thought it was morally right. To me that's a most important thing in a Pope.
And he seemed like he truly believed in what he said, which again is something I find important, and on occasion lacking in certain members of the clergy.
I never saw him before the attempted assassination in 1981, so my main memory of the Pope is of this kindly old man who, though his suffering was great, didn't give up. That's what my Mum and Nan thought he should do, and I was stuck trying to explain that from what little I could gather, the Pope thought that God would tell him what to do when the time came for him to do it.
I was in Poland in the summer of 2000, I don't know how many of you have been there but it's a lovely place and I recommend that everyone go, and that was the thing that impressed itself on me the most, how very religious the whole country seemed to be and how much the Pope meant to them. And he did, he wasn't a remote figure in Rome he was one of their own.
And that's it, the Pope mattered to people, but it wasn't just people in Rome, or in Poland, or Catholics but it was an awful lot of people like me who aren't Catholic, aren't Italian, aren't Polish, aren't even particularly religious but he mattered, because he was real. In an age where image was all, and I'm not debating that he could use the media masterfully and did, he was utterly, utterly real.
My Mum would say I'm probably being horribly sentimental, but I hope the Pope is at peace.
First for a declaration of interests - I'm not Catholic, the nearest I got was that the kindergarten I went to was run by nuns. I'm non-aligned Protestant, except I haven't been in a church for something that isn't hatching, matching or dispatching or tourism since I was 11.
I'm not Polish, but I have been there and this is important later on.
~~~~
I'm 20 so I've only ever known one Pope. He was the one steadfast point in an increasingly crazy world. And it's going to be very strange when the Pope isn't John Paul II.
Like I said I'm not Catholic and there have been times when I've not agreed with the Pope's stance on an issue, contraception being the most obvious one, but I always got the feeling that he said what he did, not out of some attempt to gain favour or curry this country or anothers belief, but because he thought it was morally right. To me that's a most important thing in a Pope.
And he seemed like he truly believed in what he said, which again is something I find important, and on occasion lacking in certain members of the clergy.
I never saw him before the attempted assassination in 1981, so my main memory of the Pope is of this kindly old man who, though his suffering was great, didn't give up. That's what my Mum and Nan thought he should do, and I was stuck trying to explain that from what little I could gather, the Pope thought that God would tell him what to do when the time came for him to do it.
I was in Poland in the summer of 2000, I don't know how many of you have been there but it's a lovely place and I recommend that everyone go, and that was the thing that impressed itself on me the most, how very religious the whole country seemed to be and how much the Pope meant to them. And he did, he wasn't a remote figure in Rome he was one of their own.
And that's it, the Pope mattered to people, but it wasn't just people in Rome, or in Poland, or Catholics but it was an awful lot of people like me who aren't Catholic, aren't Italian, aren't Polish, aren't even particularly religious but he mattered, because he was real. In an age where image was all, and I'm not debating that he could use the media masterfully and did, he was utterly, utterly real.
My Mum would say I'm probably being horribly sentimental, but I hope the Pope is at peace.
