Opinion of Pope John Paul II

[Flying Dog]

Major FF

[Flying Dog]

He is not given enough credit for his reparations of relations with all the various religions that he re-opened relations with. He also apologized for a lot of the Catholic Church's misdeeds over the past century's including involvement in the slave trade, violations of womens rights, inactivity during the holocaust, and for the crusades.

Sure, he was a conservative on Church doctrine and reproduction. Being against contraception and women ordination was a long held position of every pope, though.

I applaud him for his condemnation of Liberation Theology and not going overboard on the Latin American Bishops that followed it. He could have excommunicated all those bishops, but he didn't.

He was also a critic of Communism. Gorbechev once said that the fall of communism would have been impossible if not for PJP2

He was also a harsh critic of the Iraq war and the death penalty, positions which liberals don't give him enough credit on.

O.K. I'm done.

[Flying Dog]

Despite his open support for zionism, FF

Well, a number of Jews quickly forgot all the help that Pius XII had provided them simply because he didn't support the creation of Israel.  With the advantage of hindsight, I think he was right, but its there now, so....

I'm more bothered by Pius XII's reluctance to speak out against Hitler, like his predecessor did.

In places where the priests did speak out publicly against Hitler, the SS came and rounded up everyone in the Church, which often included Jews being hidden there.  With some 6,000 Jews being hidden in the immediate vicinity of the Vatican, many in the Vatican itself, what exactly would have been gained if Pius had spoken out?  What if he had and the Nazis had used it as a pretext to investigate every Catholic Church and monastery under their control in Europe?  Do you have any idea how many hundreds of thousands of Jews would have been discovered and rounded up?  Hitler formed two plans to make Pius "disappear" and replace him with a puppet fascist, which, admittedly, finding one wouldn't have been hard, since there were plenty of ardent fascists amongst the bishops of Spain, Germany and Italy.

People like Churchill had the luxury of being able to speak out.  They were running a very public war.  Pius wasn't.  His speaking out might have earned him a little bit of praise from historians, but at what cost at the time?

Very well put. Couldn't have said it better myself.

I was actually in the midst of posting a long post about this and then I saw yours and how much better It was so I just stopped.

[Flying Dog]

Despite his open support for zionism, FF

Well, a number of Jews quickly forgot all the help that Pius XII had provided them simply because he didn't support the creation of Israel.  With the advantage of hindsight, I think he was right, but its there now, so....

I'm more bothered by Pius XII's reluctance to speak out against Hitler, like his predecessor did.

In places where the priests did speak out publicly against Hitler, the SS came and rounded up everyone in the Church, which often included Jews being hidden there.  With some 6,000 Jews being hidden in the immediate vicinity of the Vatican, many in the Vatican itself, what exactly would have been gained if Pius had spoken out?  What if he had and the Nazis had used it as a pretext to investigate every Catholic Church and monastery under their control in Europe?  Do you have any idea how many hundreds of thousands of Jews would have been discovered and rounded up?  Hitler formed two plans to make Pius "disappear" and replace him with a puppet fascist, which, admittedly, finding one wouldn't have been hard, since there were plenty of ardent fascists amongst the bishops of Spain, Germany and Italy.

People like Churchill had the luxury of being able to speak out.  They were running a very public war.  Pius wasn't.  His speaking out might have earned him a little bit of praise from historians, but at what cost at the time?

Very well put. Couldn't have said it better myself.

What I find particularly disturbing about all these allegations about Pius during WWII is that they are all based on his "silence", and totally ignore the some 200,000 Jewish lives that he helped save by ordering that Jews be helped and hidden.  Just goes to show how much people value words over actions.

I can see how some people can think negatively about Pius if they didn't understand the circumstances he was in at the the time. Though I totally agree with you.