Senator Andrew Bartlett
Sunday, April 03, 2005
 
In the Name of the Father

Pope John Paul II is reportedly close to death as I write this. Whatever you might think of the guy, he’s certainly had a huge impact as a world leader. I was brought up as a Catholic, although these days I class myself as just an occasionally interested observer. As special masses and prayer services are held for the Pope around the world, it makes me wonder – surely if even the Pope needs prayers to help him get a good welcome at the Pearly Gates, the rest of us haven’t got much of a chance!

This Pope feels a bit like the Queen to me – like he’s always been there. He took over when I was still at High School. When I was growing up, Pope Paul VI was the one who felt like he’d always been there, and his death was the first time I saw a change in Pope, with Pope John Paul I succeeding him. I still recall about a month later a friend coming up to me in the playground saying “the Pope’s dead”, and my laughing at him for being a month out of date. It took quite a while before I believed him that the new guy had died too.

We joked that Pope John Paul should be followed by Pope George Ringo, which was about as likely as the new Pope coming from somewhere like Poland.

Following are some brief impressions, more as top of mind thoughts than fully considered views, of what I think are some of the good points and bad points of the job John Paul II did. (There are plenty of other longer efforts around such as this one from The Currency Lad). In some ways it’s a bit hard for me to take too strong a position on what could be seen as internal matters of a religion I don’t believe in. However, given my experience and upbringing within that religion and his wider impact as an influential leader in our society, his role is certainly also open to secular judgement.

Good points – opposing the oppression and major human rights abuses of communism; criticising the inequalities and exploitation of capitalism; speaking out against war and against poverty; supporting democracy (except within the Church); trying to build some bridges (or mend fences) with other religions; opposing capital punishment and supporting some human rights (e.g. refugees); OK on supporting the rights of workers.

Bad points – failing to meaningfully address sexual abuse by the Clergy; preventing a meaningful role for women in the wider Church as well as continuing to keep women out of the priesthood; opposing the use of contraception even to help tackle AIDS; continuing opposition to married priests; didn’t do enough to highlight the damage being inflicted on the environment/creation; reinforcing the continuing vilification of gays and lesbians by some Christians.

The usual speculation is around about who will be the next Pope. I think naming an African might be a bit too left-field still, but perhaps a Latin American might get a shot at it, which would be an interesting development. It’s probably sacrilegious to bet on such things, but this on-line betting site has an African, a Honduran, a Cuban and a Brazilian in the top 7 contenders. Only one Asian is listed at 20-1 (and George Pell at 40-1 – c’mon Aussie c’mon?!). I doubt they let the Cardinals take their mobile phones into the conclave, so there’s no risk of them sending text messages to a bookie.

In doing a bit of web surfing on Popes and the like, I came across St Malachy's Prophecy of the Popes. I had completely forgotten about this, but it was something my grandmother told me about when I was around 10 years old. She believed a lot of that stuff – always reading up on the latest reports of apparitions of the Virgin Mary and the like. This prophecy suggests that there might only be two Popes left after this one, when Rome will be destroyed and the end of the world will occur! Heavy stuff when you’re 10 years old (although there were 4 Popes left at that time). Heavy stuff now too I guess if it was true, although I figure if by some chance a prophecy is valid, then it’s going to happen anyway, so I may as well just get on doing with what I think should be done.


UPDATE: The Pope has now passed away (or on). I don’t know if the betting site I referred to above got threatened with excommunication, but it is no longer showing odds on who will be the new Pope. (The site is called Paddy Power, so maybe it was Irish Catholic guilt?) Anyway, Readabet.com also has some odds. As the Pope is a Head of State and potentially significant world leader as well as ‘just’ a religious figure, this is a fairly important point. Some pundits have suggested that betting markets are a more accurate predictor of election results than opinion polls, although as I mentioned above, I doubt any of the 177 Cardinals who are eligible voters are placing bets, so I doubt it works in this case.

For what’s it worth, the market on Readabet has some significant differences to Paddy Power. There are still a lot of non-Europeans, although a Cardinal from Columbia has replaced the Cuban in the Top 7 and George Pell’s odds have blown out to 139-1.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, April 03, 2005 Permalink
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