[Buddha-l] This pope

[jkirk]

> I have deeply mixed feelings about the man. I loved his humanity and
> his genuine interest in people as people. I am sorry that he defended
> several doctrines that I find odious.
----------------------
I too have mixed takes on John Paul II, similar to Jim's. Especially his
animadversion to condom use. Noting the incredibly narrow-minded
conservatism of the E. Indian and African priests, e.g., is a point usually
overlooked by American Catholic cultists (in terms of the world picture,
that's a pretty descriptive term for them), who think there's nothing
religiously odd about wanting women to be priests, getting abortions, or
practicing birth control (which they've been doing for decades). The rest of
the world is utterly far more male chauvinist than many an American Catholic
priest. The very idea of women priests to them is ridiculous and also
extremely emotionally threatening. An example of the paranoia about making
any changes whatsoever to doctrine that I heard in an interview on NPR
recently, is the opinion of many African priests that condoms must be
discouraged because they are a means of birth control (sinful), encourage
sex out of wedlock (sinful),
while ignoring the established fact that condom use is also HIV/AIDS
preventive, in a sub-continent that is now riddled with this disease. In
Africa this policy is so well defended by the church that, IMO, that church
exhibits the most egregious hostility to moral compassion imaginable.

I won't discuss the contradictions between moral dogma and actual behavior
in Africa, including among most Catholics. The male chauvinism of most of
the local cultures there ensures that protecting a female partner from HIV
is of no concern to males, and virgin girls are special targets in the
alleged belief that intercourse with a virgin cures HIV. (For the same
reasons, this is a big problem in S. and S.E. Asia as well.) The politics of
all this is also horrendous in many states, where
propagandising in favor of using condoms, or public education about
HIV/AIDS, is slim pickens.  (I won't go into the notoriously ignorant and
wrong views of Mbeke, the president of the Republic of South Africa.)
Uganda is the only country that is making progress: forceful public
education programs recommend abstinence first, monogamy second, and if not
possible to observe those, condoms.
Thus, agreeing with Jim's analysis, I suspect that the future chosen Pope,
if he has any progressive views (probably doubtful), would face a gigantic
withdrawal from the church by the African Catholic priesthoods if he tried
anything new. And the emphasis is ever on expansion, not contraction.
Joanna