Pope John Paul II: A Blog about his Biography, Visits, Press Releases, Articles, and Life.

'A culture of death'

N/A | 2005-04-16 11:07:00

The Catholic church John Paul II inherited in 1978 was in shambles. Reforms begun by the Vatican Council II shook the church to its foundation, and the tumult within the church could be compared to the turmoil in the outer world during the 1960s' era of peace, love and protests over the war in Vietnam. "The church went through a tremendous crisis," says Moynihan. "It knocked the church to its knees. It lost one-third of its priests and a tremendous number of nuns."

John Paul II embarked on nothing less than a restoration of the church, one grounded in its conservative tradition. His rejection of contraception and abortion has been absolute and unbending, and his almost dictatorial manner has not always played well.

People magazine observed that the pope -- who has had no qualms about silencing those within the church family who disagree with him -- is "more given to self-discipline than self-doubt."

"It's a mistake to apply American democratic procedures to the faith and truth," the pope has said. "You cannot take a vote on the truth."

Hans Kung, a liberal Catholic theologian who has crossed swords with the pope, told Time, "This Pope is a disaster for our church. There's charm there, but he's closed-minded."

The Economist magazine reported that another troublesome theologian, Bernard Haring, compared the questioning he underwent at the Vatican "to the treatment he once received under Hitler."

Margaret Steinfels, the editor of the Catholic magazine Commonweal and amore moderate critic of the pope, accuses him of polarizing issues. In his opposition to contraception, abortion and euthanasia, for example, he has accused the industrialized world of fostering "a culture of death."

"I don't deny that there are many problems in the U.S. and the West," she said, "but I don't think that calling it a 'culture of death' and the church the 'church of life' is a useful way of dealing with things. I disagree with his metaphors."

The pope also has confounded Steinfels and many others with his insistence that church doctrine prohibits the ordination of women. In affirming his position in a letter to bishops in 1994, he wrote in uncompromising fashion," this judgment is to be definitively held by all the church's faithful."

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