Before this is deleted, give the man credit

[tardfarmer]

Aside from being an outstanding moral authority, his impact was/is more than any single man in this century.....


Pope Helped Overthrow Communism in Europe

1 hour, 28 minutes ago Europe - AP


By DAVID McHUGH, Associated Press Writer

BERLIN - Karol Wojtyla became a priest in 1946, just as the Iron Curtain descended across Europe. The inspiration he provided as Pope John Paul II helped to tear it down.

Lech Walesa, founder of the Solidarity movement that toppled communism in Poland in 1989-90, recalled the power of John Paul's visit to Warsaw in 1979. It was the first to his homeland after becoming pope a year earlier, and he ended Mass with a prayer for the Holy Spirit to "renew the face of the Earth," words that became a rallying cry.


"We know what the pope has achieved. Fifty percent of the collapse of communism is his doing," Walesa told The Associated Press on Friday. "More than one year after he spoke these words, we were able to organize 10 million people for strikes, protests and negotiations.


"Earlier we tried, I tried, and we couldn't do it. These are facts. Of course, communism would have fallen, but much later and in a bloody way. He was a gift from the heavens to us."


The pope's role in the fight against communism was largely symbolic and moral.


Soviet dictator Josef Stalin had once disparaged the influence of an earlier pope, as reported by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill: "The pope! How many divisions has he got?" Yet John Paul turned out to have forces at his disposal beyond the imagination of the communists who ruled Poland after Soviet troops occupied the country at the end of World War II.


Originally, the Polish secret police were not worried at Wojtyla's promotion to archbishop of Krakow in 1963, considering him a poet and apolitical dreamer.


His coronation as pope was different. The fact that a Pole, from an eastern Europe penned behind barbed wire, could become the most prominent religious figure in the West was immensely powerful, said Alexander Rahr, an expert on Russia and the Soviet Union at the German Council on Foreign Relations.


"For many Poles, it was the fact that one of their own made it in the West, which was closed at the time for Poland, made it to the top of the Catholic Church and played a political and moral role as one of the leaders in the world," said Rahr. "That mattered. It mattered politically; it mattered as a moral matter."


Pictures of John Paul giving his blessing or Holy Communion to a kneeling Walesa, himself a churchgoing Catholic, did much to undermine Poland's atheist regime. And the strong Catholic element in Solidarity helped make it a nonviolent movement, though its miners and factory workers could have purloined all the explosives they needed if terrorism had been their choice.


John Paul did not call for an open uprising against communism, and seemed to have a kind of rapport with Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Polish leader who imposed martial law in 1981 in a vain attempt to suppress Solidarity. Some think Jaruzelski's move saved restive Poland from a catastrophic Soviet invasion.


A few years later, a reform-minded Soviet leadership under Mikhail Gorbachev gave the long-suffering Poles their chance. Strikes in Gdansk in late 1988 forced the government into bargaining with the opposition in February 1989. The crumbling of party authority gathered speed and spread to Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, Romania and Bulgaria.


Poles say the pope's charismatic visits and Masses let

[kevin1]

Maddest props to the Holy See ,
men of his vision and conviction are rare indeed . He also has the distinction of being the first Pope with whom I rarely disagreed . He toed the church line throughout , and never backed down when things got rough . In fact , he's one of the few priests that I've ever honestly respected and admired .

Maybe premature(I hope) , but R.I.P. Karol Wojtyla , may your successor be your equal , though I don't see how he could . You're leaving some very big shoes to fill .

[tardfarmer]

Maybe premature(I hope) , but R.I.P. Karol Wojtyla , may your successor be your equal , though I don't see how he could . You're leaving some very big shoes to fill .

All indications are that his successor will be even more strict....

DOMINUS VOBISCUM

[kevin1]

ORIGINAL: tardfarmer

All indications are that his successor will be even more strict....

DOMINUS VOBISCUM

In light of recent events I honestly hope that you're right ,
the church could use a little trip to the woodshed and some straightening up if it wishes to survive the trying times ahead .

[tardfarmer]

In light of recent events I honestly hope that you're right ,
the church could use a little trip to the woodshed and some straightening up if it wishes to survive the trying times ahead .

You are making the mistake of equating the individual with the religion.


bad choice.

[kevin1]

ORIGINAL: tardfarmer

You are making the mistake of equating the individual with the religion.


bad choice.

No ,
I'm saying that his successor must be every bit the leader that the current Pope was and then some if the church is to survive and advance it's vision in a turbulent world . Just being strict won't cut it . Tough row to hoe , I don't envy him the task . Karol Wojtyla will be about the hardest act to follow in history as you said . I couldn't agree more , we're just saying it different ways .

[Whitehorse]

He has been an extremely influential and successful Pope, a very honorable man who has lasted a long time though in failing health.

[datamax]

I thought this was in Memorial To Perdue ............

[summit daWg]

I had heard that he told Brezneff (Sp)over the phone that if the USSR invaded Poland during the Solidarity stuggles that HE would lead the Polish army himself.

[hillbillyhunter1]

ORIGINAL: tardfarmer

You are making the mistake of equating the individual with the religion.


bad choice.

I think Kevin1's was a fair statement. Some seem to think that church policy should change with the times (ie excepting confessed gays into the priesthood). Sometimes pressure exerted by a modern influence--not just a particular individual seems to alter what is considered acceptable guidelines of religion. How can that be? One thing for sure, if there is a God (I am not going to debate that, but would assume that those who are religious believe there is), He/She/It would not change their own view based on what is currently popular in society, although sometimes it would seem, some would try to change the God that they claim to believe in.