RIP John Paul II

The media event of the last week were the last days and the death of pope John Paul II. You might agree or disagree with his opinions, but the man leaves a definite mark on the world. He can be seen as one of the greater statesmen of the twentieth century. His struggle against communism, but also against unrestrained capitalism, social injustice, and war and his plea for peace, human rights and dialogue between religions and civilizations are laudable. But the Dutch and especially the Belgian press choose to blow up the negative aspects of the third-longest pontificate in history. They want to stress the backwardness of the pope and the Catholic Church in general. I don't always agree with the Catholic doctrine (e.g. the position of women, the celibate and the infallibility of the pope in doctrinal issues), but the mainly left-wing Belgian press tars everything with the same brush and looks upon 'conservative' as a very dirty word. Conservatism is something that has to be eradicated. They even seem to forget you cannot have progressives without conservatives. In anycase, I think the position of women in the Church is not comparable with a viewpoint on abortion. Without trying to start a discussion in which cases abortion is acceptable, I just want to say it is not acceptable to kill a foetus because we don't feel like having a baby right now. Responsability is the keyword. Which also means you have to allow the use of contraceptives. But it is ridiculous to hold the pope responsable for propagation of AIDS in Africa. It is much more a cultural problem than a problem of Catholic faith. Why would people listen to the Church about not using condoms, but not about monogamous relations? Don't forget rapists and youth gangs in Cape Town won't use condoms either. Furthermore, I don't believe condoms are available in every African village. So people, stop the crap. It is nice someone wants to take a moral stand in this lawless world, even if I don't agree with all values in it.

I'm not going to do any prediction about the name or the policy of the next pope, since I have no clue at all. But if I had to vote, I would go for one of the Latin American papabiles. It's time 'the hope of Catholicism' and the New World gets represented in Rome. A blog about the conclave can be found on http://conclaaf.blogspot.com (articles in Dutch, French, English, and German).