The Dick Cheney of Popes

Roy Edroso at alicublog:

John Paul II essentially conducted himself as an American-style conservative. .... [He] had more or less written off the West -- except as an income stream -- but had an eye on other regions. His tireless travel, like our own crusades, was mostly devoted those areas less acquainted with peace and freedom (and capitalism, and individual liberty) than our own, regions where he may have imagined there was hope for renewal.

Though he railed against our "culture of death," JPII never put the Church in direct confrontation with it on our turf. It may be that, when he retrenched Liberation Theology, he was just swatting down Marxism -- or it may be that he was acknowledging that our hemisphere was for the time being lost, and that only a worldwide revival based in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe -- places that are effectively at Year Zero, where Church law could one day become, as it was in the West in centuries past, the law of the land -- could redress the balance.

Whatever his reasoning, Pope John Paul II worked tirelessly in the interests of a Church that I left many years ago. Any resemblance between those interests and the interests of Jesus of Nazareth are, I assure you, purely coincidental.

Yes.  One of my theories about the people running the Republican party today is that they are convinced that America is doomed, and they are just trying to control the timetable and path of its destruction by serving as the instrument of that destruction.  That is, America to certain elite conservatives is like a great big business careering toward bankruptcy - the only question is what you can loot before the whole thing goes bust.  Useless junk - civil liberties, religious tolerance, long-term investments in education and science - are all tossed overboard or shoved aside.  If true, this would explain much, I think. 

Mr. Wojtyła may have just realized something similar about the fate of the irrational Catholic Church in the educated West, too, and decided to take it into more hardline, brutal waters as a measure of necessity.  Between the stateless wealthy and the controlling priest there could be common cause.

Comments

[eRobin]

One of my theories about the people running the Republican party today is that they are convinced that America is doomed, and they are just trying to control the timetable and path of its destruction by serving as the instrument of that destruction.

I go further. I think they have an active interest in the bankrupting of the country. I can't figure out how they think it would all shake out, but it's the only thing that explains their behavior. Especially the way they work tirelessly to be sure we don't do what we do best, which is lead the world in innovation. (energy innovation would put us right back on top again and for a very long time) Your example of them looting a failing company is a good one, but looting is what they have always done the best. It feels different this time.

[Mithras]

Yes, that's what I mean by them being the instrument of the country's downfall. The energy innovation thing is a good example, as is the bizarre aversion to science generally.