Tag Archives: John Paul II

2001-2008 9/11 and Bush’s Wars

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A tragic tale of two millionaire wannabes: the Saudi terrorist, the cowboy president, and what they wrought. Continue reading →

I wrote this entry on September 11, 2001, the twentieth anniversary of the famous terrorist incident. 9/11/01 was a Tuesday. We had a full house at TSI’s office in East Windsor—Sandy Sant’Angelo, Nadine Holmes, Harry Burt, Brian Rolllet, Denise Bessette, and myself. Sandy either was either listening to a radio, or she was surfing the Internet. She told the rest of us. I cannot remember whether everyone stopped working or not.

I was not even a little surprised that something like this had happened. I had followed developments in the Middle East since I debated and gave extemporaneous speeches about foreign policy when I was in high school. Also, there had already been some close calls. In 1993 a member of a group called Al-Qaeda, Ramzi Yusef, had set off a very destructive bomb in a basement parking lot of the World Trade Center.

A country can’t just take another country’s land and colonize it little by little.

For a long time Arabs who were not lucky enough to control oil deposits had been treated very shabbily by the West. The big issue, of course, was the fact that after World War II the Palestinians had been summarily evicted from the land in which they had resided for decades and replaced by Jewish refugees from the Pale and from western countries. At the same time Israel had been assisted by the United States in developing a very strong army with an impressive arsenal that included nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.

Little by little the Israeli government had limited the rights of non-Jews and, after the Six-Day War in 1967, had authorized hundreds of thousands of settlers to seize property on the West Bank previously owned by the Palestinians. Another factor was the fact that one of Islam’s holiest places had also been seized during the war and access to it was subsequently controlled by the Israelis. On several occasions a peace negotiations between the two sides had been attempted, but nothing much ever happened.

For more than fifty years any attempt to address these issues in the United Nations was thwarted by the U.S. So, it was no surprise to me that a very large number of people in the Middle East felt great animosity toward America.

BDL was my starting and ending point.

In 2001 and the previous few years I had been traveling all over the country1, almost always by airplane (anecdotes recounted here). I was lucky that most major airlines scheduled flights at the local airport, Bradley International, but almost all my itineraries required a layover at a hub. So, I was quite familiar with the security arrangements at airports around the country. At most airports security was run by the airlines themselves or by contractors that they hired. The marketplace for air travel was intensely competitive. The primary objective for the airlines was to make the experience enjoyable.They emphasized how pleasant flying on their planes was. Security was seldom mentioned.

The gates at KCI were walled in, but the walls were only about ten feet high. I envisioned a graceful sky hook.

In the hours that I spent sitting in airports I sometimes tried to imagine ways for getting weapons onto airplanes. The type of security varied greatly from airport to airport, but I thought that a determined person could easily have figured out a way to get a gun on an airplane. In some airports, such as Kansas City’s, it would have been laughably easy.

So, when I heard on 9/11 that a group of people had skyjacked some planes, I assumed that that they had smuggled guns aboard. In fact, however, they did not need guns. Their only weapons were box-cutters, mace, and imaginary bombs. They were able to commandeer the planes because in those days the door to the cockpit was generally open. Flight attendants went in and out all the time. It was also not rare for the captain to meander into the passenger area and chat with people. Kids were sometimes invited to visit the cockpit. The airlines encouraged this rapport between the crew and the customers.

Four box cutters!

On 9/11 nineteen men divided into four teams. Two teams went to Logan International Airport in Boston, and one each to Newark International and Dulles in Virginia. Each group intended to board a flight,and when it had reached cruising altitude, and take control of the passenger area and then the cockpit. The one member of each group who had some training as a pilot would then fly his plane to a designated targets and crash int it. The four events were designed to occur simultaneously or nearly so.

Fifteen of the men were Saudis, one was Egyptian, two were from the United Arab Emirates, and one was Lebanese. Four had some training as pilots. The others were simply there as “muscle” to keep the passengers and crew under control. The oldest was the Egyptian, Mohamed Atta, who was thirty-three. All the rest were in their twenties.

Two morning flights each were selected on American Airlines and United Airlines. Three of the attempts were successful. At that time the standard procedure in dealing with a hijacker was to accede to the demands. In this case the demands were simply for the crew to get out of the way and for the passengers to remain in their assigned seats.

The passengers on United Flight #93 revolted. What happened after that is unclear, but the plane crashed in Pennsylvania.

The event was merely a murderous stunt, not an attempted coup. Al-Qaeda claimed credit for the attack, and intelligence briefings had actually predicted something like what had occurred. Most of the 2,997 casualties were associated with the attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

My representative, Nancy Johnson, immediately declared that “9/11 changed everything.” Most people probably agreed with her, but to me the only thing that 9/11 changed was to remove the blinders concerning airport security. The other potential lesson, that U.S. foreign policy was bitterly hated by a large swath of the world’s population, was not learned. In fact, anyone who acknowledged it was reviled. Instead, the clarion call was “United we stand!” Criticism was not tolerated.

The Bush administration’s reaction was very strange in one way. The entire country’s airspace was essentially closed to commercial traffic for several days. That was probably prudent. However, during this period the government allowed the evacuation from the U.S. of 140 or more Saudi nationals despite confirmed intelligence that the vast majority of the of the perpetrators were Saudis. The funding also mostly came from other Saudis.

The attack was described by everyone as a terrorist act, which, of course, it was. Colin Powell said that we were “fighting a war against terrorists of global reach.” He therefore excluded Hamas, Hezbollah, and domestic terrorists. Almost immediately, however, the “of global reach” limitation was dropped, and anyone who in any way supported terrorism (except for the right-wing American version) was added to the list of enemies. Later the president the target as evil itself, as embodied in the “Axis of Evil’: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Bush even used the word “Crusade” to describe the new Bush Doctrine of boundless preemptive military actions. No word was more offensive to Muslims.

To his credit, W. stopped short of offering indulgences to everyone who fought in this war on terror.

The testosterone-laden approach was very popular. Support for the president jumped to an astounding 90 percent. Nobody asked me.

Paul Wolfowitz and the Neo-Cons demanded blood.

This is indisputable; None of these countries had in any way participated in the attacks. Iraq’s biggest crime was probably the $25,000 that Saddam Hussein had been paying families of Palestinian suicide bombers. There was something personal, too. Iraq had allegedly been behind an assassination attempt on W.’s father in Kuwait. Iran was allied with Hezbollah. The Israeli lobby and the Neo-Cons who advised Bush pressed for aggressive action against both.

Nobody in North Korea ever crossed any borders. Who knows what the justification was for including them in this unholy crusade? It has been reported that President Bush informed Bob Woodward that he loathed Kim Jong Il.

So, who was a terrorist? Terrorism is a tactic, not a country or organization. Terrorists didn’t wear uniforms or work on behalf of governments. Some didn’t work for anyone. Their common traits were strict secrecy and lack of access to advanced weapons.

So, how do you identify them before they commit a heinous act? The answer was simple: “Don’t worry. We know some of them3, and we have ways of finding the rest. Trust us.”

Noun: exaggerated pride or self-confidence.

Meanwhile, the first stage was to attack the Taliban, a band of religious fanatics who ran Afghanistan and gave refuge to Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda. After a few weeks of heavy bombing the Taliban offered to hand Bin Laden over, but the Bush people were unwilling to negotiate. They expected a quick unconditional surrender, which, of course, never happened. If you look up “hubris” in the dictionary, you might see a picture of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

No more crusades, please.

In 2003 the U.S. attacked Iraq. The administration had made a comical attempt to gather allies for the vengeful invasion of the country that was the most secular of any in the Muslim world. An attempt was even made to convince the United Nations to back the attack.That was thwarted by Pope (Saint) John Paul II. My dad was very upset by the fact the country that he loved and for which he had fought in World War II, would commit such an act of naked and illegal aggression.5

I remember watching a video recording of Colin Powell’s presentation to the U.N. I had read a transcript and had been somewhat impressed. However, when I saw the video I realized that what I had assumed were photos presented in evidence were actually drawings. He was trying to sell an unprovoked invasion based on an artist’s conception of what the Iraqis might have been doing. These were just cartoons! Although many Americans swooned, the rest of the world was unimpressed.

Most of the American public bought all or at least most of the lies. I knew from reading Juan Coles’ blog, Informed Comment, that the case presented was full of holes.

The administration was not impeded by this snub. Condoleezza Rice and others appeared on radio and television programs to promulgate a new catchphrase. Even if Iraq did not currently harbor terrorists, it certainly had “weapons of mass destruction” and if the country ever did start welcoming terrorists, we did not “want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”

In point of fact, no one (except perhaps Cheney in his yellowcake fantasy) thought that Iraq had nuclear weapons. Some people just assumed that Saddam Hussein had been lying when he declared that his government had destroyed all of Iraq’s chemical weapons. The WMD justification was totally bogus.

No one except Harry Shearer seemed to notice that the one Islamic country that definitely possessed weapons of mass destruction and definitely had harbored terrorists, Pakistan, was never mentioned in this propaganda blitz.

There is no doubt whatever that the Republicans (joined by a few turncoats like my senator, Joe Lieberman) knew exactly what they were doing. Bush informed a stunned Tony Blair on September 14, 2001, that they planned to attack Iraq.

What really made me see red was the indefinite imprisonment of foreigners on the military base in Guantánamo Bay for the sole purpose of circumventing the American system of justice. Some were never even charged with a crime.

The interrogators even tortured civilians—some captured by very sketchy foreigners—to force them to provide evidence of Iraqi misdeeds. Even worse was the disgraceful use of “extraordinary rendition” to send captured individuals to countries with less rigorous legal systems in order to extract information from them—whether or not it was true. This was perhaps the most disgraceful period in U.S. history that I have witnessed. In my opinion all of the participants should have been tried for war crimes. I cannot imagine what their defense would have been.

Richard Reid’s shoes.

The reaction to 9/11 that affected my lifestyle the most was the creation of the Homeland Security Department and, especially, its Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Security at airports and on airplanes definitely needed improvement. Armed passengers needed to be prevented from boarding airplanes. If someone with a weapon somehow got aboard, they must be prevented from gaining access to the cockpit.

However, one does not use a double-barreled shotgun when threatened by a mosquito. The new security procedures were a grotesque overreaction. For example, solely because one incompetent idiot named Richard Reid once tried to light his sneakers on fire on an airplane, every adult was required to remove both shoes before boarding an airplane! The TSA transformed air travel from a boring expediency into an outrageously annoying exercise in frustration. I ended every trip in a very foul mood.

European countries had already implemented a much more reasonable and equally effective program. We should have sought counsel from them as to how they had successfully dealt with a very active terrorist group, the Red Brigades. The Bushies were too busy making and selling their plans to ask anyone for advice.

The most sensible moves that the administration undertook were to require the crew in the cockpit to stay there and to require the door to the cockpit to be locked. Thank goodness the government did not accede to the demands from some gung-ho pilots to carry sidearms.

The most frightening experience that I ever had in an airport or an airplane was in the Intercontinental Airport in Houston shortly after 9/11. Some genius had decided that it would be cool to have soldiers with automatic weapons in U.S. airports. I saw in the Houston airport a young guy in U.S. Army camos4 eating his supper alone at a restaurant. His M16 was leaning against the back of his chair.

The M16 was a weapon that I (and thousands of others) knew very well. I could consistently hit a human-sized target with one at distances up to three hundred meters. I could take one apart and reassemble it. Most importantly, I knew the location of the little lever that activated the fully automatic mode. As I watched the young man eat his burger, I suddenly realized that I was carrying a potential weapon—my laptop in its very sturdy metal case—with which I could easily disable this soldier, thereby enabling me to seize his rifle. I wondered how many other travelers there had similar thoughts.

Anyway, the U.S. forces quickly brushed aside the Iraqi troops. Our draft-dodging president got to land a jet on an aircraft carrier where a huge “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” banner was displayed.

We tried to install a Hartford Native, Paul Bremer, as imperial governor. That did not go over too well. The fighting continued in whack-a-mole fashion at a reduced level. Then the situation deteriorated. We dropped a lot of bombs, and hired a lot of mercenaries. When things began to look really bad again our military presence in Iraq even “surged” just before the 2004 election in America. Some called it “the splurge” because a whole lot of money was spent assuring the support of local power brokers. This tactic was effective, but the loyalty only lasted as long as the payments kept coming.

After the first election, Iraqi men and women showed their purple fingers to cameramen.

The U.S. eventually imposed on the Iraqis an Italian-style parliamentary democracy. We may have expected the Iraqis to form parties that resembled liberals and conservatives, but, in fact, Saddam Hussein had probably been the most liberal leader in the Muslim world. He tolerated all religions, but the new parties were formed primarily along religious lines, and, guess what, the most popular party was the Shiite faction that was friendliest to Iran, a card-carrying member of the Axis of Evil. The main thing that all parties agreed upon was that all Americans and practitioners of non-Muslim religions—including the rather vibrant Christian communities—were not welcome in democratic Iraq.

Eventually, we did go, in a manner of speaking. But what a cost this adventure exacted—hundreds of thousands of lives lost, millions of lives of innocent Iraqis disrupted, trillions of dollars wasted, and a treasure trove of international good will squandered.

Then the Islamic State (or ISIS or ISIL) developed, and we allied with Iran, of all people. Then we had to fight them in Syria, too, and …

I don’t want to write any more about this. I am not an expert on the Middle East, but Juan Cole is.

I have been following Juan Cole’s blog, Informed Comment since it began in 2002. You can find it at juancole.com. Cole was (and still is in 2021) a professor in the history department at my Alma Mater, the University of Michigan. His writings presented an impartial and very well researched description of affairs in the Middle East and other countries dominated by Muslims. He had lived for a period in the area and he could read and understand Arabic and a few other languages used in that area.

I have read his blog every morning no matter where I was since he started posting it in 2002.

Professor Cole wrote a long article in 2006 for Foreign Policy magazine explaining the politics of the situation. Although he was pilloried by jingoistic Americans and Zionists at the time, he has proven right about nearly everything. The article was republished on his website on September 10, 2021. You can read it here.

1. In those years I spent considerable amounts of time in airports in all of the following states: Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.

2. Nancy Johnson served in Congress for twenty-four years. She was defeated by twelve percentage points in 2006 by Democrat Chris Murphy despite outspending him by a large margin. Since then she has worked as a lobbyist.

3. To help identify the “bad guys”, a deck of cards was created. Saddam was the ace of spades. During this period rumors abounded about potential terrorists who looked like ordinary God-fearing law-abiding citizens. However, on notification by someone (George Soros?) they and the other members of their “sleeper cell” were ready to spring into action to attack a predetermined target.

Some patriots took the “better safe than sorry” approach. On September 15, 2001, Frank Roque murdered a Sikh man and fired on a Lebanese man and an Afghan family in Arizona.

4. My dad asserted at the time that it was the first unprovoked attack by the U.S. This was clearly false, but I never challenged it.

5. Don’t get me started on the current custom of military personnel wearing camouflaged fatigues for day-to-day activities in the U.S.

Canonization of Two Popes

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Do they deserve it? Continue reading →

Two popes will be canonized on Sunday, John XXIII and John Paul II. Maureen Dowd has recently written in the New York Times that there was only one halo between them, and it belonged to John XXIII. She objected to the way that John Paul handled the numerous scandals caused by abusive priests. Particularly offensive to her were the ways that he dealt with Cardinal Law and the unbelievable story of Marcial Maciel Degollado. Dowd argues that these shortcomings outweigh the good that the pope did in other areas, most especially his role in the overthrow of the Communist regimes in eastern Europe.

If you take the question seriously, and she almost certainly does, the first issue must certainly be establishing criteria for evaluating a pope’s determination that someone is worthy of canonization. The theory behind this (and much of Catholic doctrine) is entirely based on two verses in the Gospel of Matthew. The pope, as the successor to St. Peter, has the Keys to the Kingdom. If he says that someone is in heaven, then that person is there. Live with it.

It is therefore clearly heretical for Dowd to claim that Pope Francis is wrong in canonizing John Paul II. I have not read about anyone calling her a heretic, but it seems obvious to me that an article entitled “A Saint He Ain’t” puts her in the camp of Jan Hus and Giordano Bruno, and the last thing that entered their nostrils was the stench of their own burning flesh.

One could, of course, consider this from the perspective of a historian of the Church. Did these two popes do an outstanding job of promulgating the Church’s message and advancing its principles? That seems to be the approach that Dowd took, but many Catholics would think that she has it backward. To them John XXIII took the first steps on the Church’s disastrous journey to becoming a more humanistic and less dogmatic institution. John Paul II, on the other hand, stood up to the Commies and helped restore respect for the traditions and doctrines throughout the world.

There are several other ways of looking at this. The first is to compare these decisions with the canonizations of other popes. Only three popes who served since the eleventh century have been canonized, and they had almost nothing in common. It is therefore not easy to make intelligent comparisons, but I feel confident that the historical record indicates that the recent popes seem at least as saintly as the previous trio. I made that case here.

Another approach is to judge the popes by the standards of Church history. How closely Pope John Paul was involved in decisions to cover up the clerical abuse cases is not clear. I would argue that even if he personally decided to stonewall on the issue, that was consistent with Church principles and the actions of previous pontiffs.

In the first place one should bear in mind that the most basic Catholic doctrine concerns forgiveness and redemption through the sacraments. Even the most serious sins can be forgiven, and even the most incorrigible offender can be given a second chance. The most outrageous pope of all time, the first John XXIII, was, after being convicted of five serious felonies, eventually welcomed back into the Church and was even restored to the rank of cardinal. The most serious crime in the Church’s eye is not murder or rape. It is heresy because the heretic is actively recruiting others to reject the Church’s teaching. He (or in this case she) is actively trying to deceive others with the expressed intent of denying them access to the means of achieving salvation. The Inquisition was specifically convened to exterminate these people and their ideas.

So, while no pope* would condone pedophilia, a person who commits pedophilia is just an ordinary sinner. All people are sinners, and the way that the Church deals with known sinners has been consistent throughout its history. If they show contrition and have “a firm purpose of amendment,” they are forgiven. They are probably counseled to pray for sanctifying grace and to avoid “near occasions of sin.” The same rule applies to children who disrespect their parents and to serial killers and rapists like the first Pope John XXIII.

Furthermore, priests are special people. They alone have received the sacrament of Holy Orders. The Church has always preached that this confers upon them divine grace that empowers them both to administer the sacraments, the only path to redemption, and to spread the Church’s message. These men have always been considered a valuable resource that is to be husbanded.

In this context it is perfectly reasonable for Church officials to keep quiet about the foibles of one of its priests, all of whom, after all, are sinners. It is perfectly reasonable to expect the officials, assuming that the offenders repented and seemed sincere, to forgive the abusive priests and to try to help them with their problem by moving them away from temptation.

How many times should you do this before you consider them beyond the pale? The Bible says that the answer is 490 (Matthew 18:22)! I have not heard of even one priest who approached the biblical limit on forgiveness.

And what of mental illness? Aren’t the pedophiles sick? I don’t know, but this way of looking at things is not consistent with Church teachings. The fact that some people are more strongly drawn to one type of sin or another is not really germane. We all must struggle with the temptations that come our way.

Of course, the Church’s approach does not consider the rights of the victims. From its perspective, however, we are all mistreated in one way or another. Our job is to “offer it up,” forgive the sinner, and to try to use the experience as a way to increase our own resolve. I don’t remember anything in the catechism about hiring a lawyer to sue the Church for millions of dollars.

* * *
In sum, I have no idea whether either pope is actually in heaven. I think that they are both admirable men. If neither is in heaven, I don’t want to go there either. I do want to go to Africa to see the animals, and I hope to visit Italy several more times.

* Well, maybe one. Pope Julius III had a very strange relationship with an adolescent ironically named Innocenzo.

Person of the Year?

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TimeSmallTwo popes had previously been named Time magazine’s Man of the Year. John XXIII was chosen for 1962, the year that he opened the Second Vatican Council and charged it with bringing the Church into the twentieth century, or at least the Age of Enlightenment. It was a dramatic decision. The Church had not convened an ecumenical council in a century, and that last one was called to rubber stamp decisions made by Pope Pius IX. In contrast, John XXIII had set in place a mechanism for listening to new ideas and implementing the best of them.

MOYSmallJohn Paul II was chosen for 1994. By that time the pontiff’s role in undermining the Communist governments in eastern Europe was becoming clear. He provided spiritual support for all of those movements, and he did much more than that for Poland. Many people still do not realize that the Vatican bank underwrote the political campaigns of the Solidarity Trade Union that eventually brought independence and democracy, not to mention the resurgence of Catholicism, to the Polish people.

Plenty of Catholics would argue that either or both of these two dynamic leaders were misguided (or maybe even tools of Satan), but no one could claim that they were ineffective or that their acts were of little consequence. Both pontiffs were masters at public relations, but they also knew how to convert their popularity into meaningful changes. They were actors.

Bestowing this title on Pope Francis seems to me comparable to giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama in his first year in office. I suspect that the people in Oslo would like a do-over on that one. The evaluations of both of these men seemed based not on what they had done so much as what their predecessors had done. Obama seemed ready to disavow Bush’s doctrine of preventive war, and Francis has at least eschewed the plodding mannerisms, luxurious accommodations, and red Prada shoes of Benedict XVI.

FrancisPope Francis has certainly made a number of startling statements and gestures. It is difficult to imagine any of his 263* predecessors uttering the words, “Who am I to judge?” His washing of the feet of others and, indeed, his choice of the name “Francis” were no doubt acts of symbolic importance.

But what has Pope Francis actually done? I read the Time article to see if I missed anything. OK; he has set up some commissions to look into some tricky issues, but that is the same tactic that Clement VII employed back in the sixteenth century to put off Henry VIII’s request for an annulment of his marriage. The only actual act that I could find was the elimination of the rank of “monsignor.” I suppose that that is something, but it did not go far in eliminating the hierarchy. There are still deacons, priests, bishops, archbishops, patriarchs, cardinals and who knows how many other levels. The curia may feel threatened, but it has not yet been attacked directly.

Don’t tell me that Pope Francis has done everything that he could be expected to do. He is the man. He can make judgments! For example, he could eliminate the ban on contraceptives tomorrow morning right after his two hours of prayer. There is no basis in scripture, and the reasoning is convoluted. Other popes have contradicted their predecessors on far weaker grounds.

Someday Pope Francis may be widely recognized as a great pope. I strongly feel that Time should have waited for that day and instead selected someone who sacrificed his livelihood if not his life to bring to light the shenanigans in and around the NSA.

* Pope Francis is #266 on the list of popes, but Benedict IX’s name is there three times.

The Two New Saints

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The Vatican recently announced that Pope Francis would canonize two popes, John XXIII and John Paul II. This is truly astounding news. Only three popes since the eleventh century have been canonized. Each of those should probably include an asterisk.

  • Detail of a fresco in Castel Nuovo in Naples.

    Detail of a fresco in Castel Nuovo in Naples.

    Celestine V (1294) should never have been pope. He was a reclusive and ascetic hermit, who had had little contact with humankind for decades. He never even made it to Rome; he took up residence in King Charles’s castle in Naples. After five months of incompetent bungling he was persuaded to resign by his successor, Boniface VIII. The latter promptly imprisoned Celestine, who died in his cell. The King of France, Philip the Fair, hated Pope Boniface, and, after the pontiff died, the king worked hard both to have Celestine canonized and Boniface condemned. He succeeded in the first, but not the second.

  • PiusVFacePius V (1566-1572) was a Grand Inquisitor before he was elected pontiff. He set up a network of spies and informants who fingered people who blasphemed or expressed opinions that could be considered heretical. He also tirelessly strove to rid the world of all forms of evil, and that included Protestants. He conspired with Catherine de’ Medici to exterminate the Huguenots in France. Their plot culminated in the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre, which occurred a short time after the pope’s death in 1572.
  • PiusXPius X (1903-1904) campaigned against “modernism,” which in his mind included nearly everything that St. Thomas Aquinas had not thought of by the time that he died in 1274. He banned much beautiful music (Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, et al.) from the liturgy. I have long thought that he must have been tone-deaf. He continued the fiction perpetrated by his two predecessors that he was a prisoner in Vatican City. He did not take sides in the runup to World War I, but he definitely admired Kaiser Wilhelm.

All three of these men were saintly, in that they prayed both fervently and continually throughout their lives. I, for one, am happy, however, that very few of their prayers were answered.

When Pope Benedict XVI paid scant attention to the cries of “santo subito” that rang out during the burial ceremonies for his predecessor, John Paul II, I assumed that canonization would not be coming for decades, if then. Many popes have been beatified, but naming one as a saint has been considered by Vatican-watchers as a politically risky move. I never thought that John XXIII (1958-1963) had a chance.

TimeSmallBoth of these pontificates were somewhat controversial. Pope John called the Second Vatican Council, which, in the minds of millions of conservative Catholics, started the Church on a long downward slide. A strong feeling persists among a very large segment of the clergy that he lowered standards to the point that the Church lost its way. They played guitars during mass! Also, he told jokes.

MOYSmallThe highlights of John Paul’s pontificate included his many celebrated trips around the world. The first visit to Poland helped to coalesce the Polish people around the idea of Christianity as a counter to Communism. There is no question that the pope contributed a great deal to the struggle that eventually resulted in the fall of the Iron Curtain. The millions of dollars that the Church directed to the Polish Labor Union Solidarity enabled it to become a political force strong enough to oust the puppet regime and begin the process of freeing the central European countries from the clutches of Russia.

Pundits have speculated that John Paul’s seeming disinterest in the many clerical sex abuse cases would weigh heavily against the prospects of his canonization. Among the clerical hierarchy this might not be that important. Most of them would have done the same thing if they were in his brogans.

Bishop Paulius Marcinkus.

Bishop Paulius Marcinkus.

On the other hand, there is the little matter of the Vatican Bank scandal that spanned the last years of Paul VI’s pontificate and the early years of John Paul’s. If there were still a Devil’s Advocate process, I wonder how the person defending the pope’s reputation would answer the charges that the bank lost hundreds of millions of dollars while engaging in schemes that involved some of the shadiest characters around, at least two of whom ended up murdered. The director of the bank, an American named Paulius Marcinkus, was indicted by the Italian government, but he was never arrested because he avoided Italian soil by staying in Vatican City. Pope John Paul definitely protected Bishop Marcincus, who had twice saved the pontiff’s life by subduing armed assailants.

SGSmallOne good thing that may come from this unusual event is to diminish the emphasis on so-called miracles. These two men did not walk on water; in fact Pope John hardly ever walked on land because in his time the pontiff was still carried around in the outrageous sedia gestatoria! The miracles mentioned these days almost always are based upon testimony that someone was cured of a fatal disease or injury because someone prayed to the new saint or used an object related to him to effect a cure.

I assumed from what I had read that the conservatives in the Curia were too powerful for any pontiff to consider nominating John Paul II, much less John XXIII, for canonization. In theory the pope can do whatever he wants, but every pope in the last few centuries has been careful about stepping on the toes of those of high rank. Maybe their power was just overrated; maybe Pope Francis just doesn’t care. It will be interesting to see if any backstabbing results from this.

I know one thing: conservative American Catholics cannot be happy. John XXIII was an unrepentant liberal, and John Paul II, although conservative when it came to doctrinal matters, had absolutely no use for George W. Bush and his wars. He personally persuaded several leaders to vote against the UN resolutions concerning the invasion of Iraq.

Choosing the Next Pope

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In a short while pope #266 will be chosen. Who will it be? I have no idea, but I do know a few things about the way that he will be chosen.

The group that chooses the pope is known as the “Sacred College of Cardinals.” At one time the cardinals served as the link between the pope, who is the Bishop of Rome, and the suburbicarian dioceses of the surrounding countryside. In those days there were only a handful of cardinals, and their primary job was to meet with the pope and then return to the hinterlands to explain his policies to the people there. After the Roman Empire virtually abandoned Italy in the fourth century, the pope was forced to take on many civil responsibilities. From 800 through 1870 the pope was universally recognized as the monarch of a strip of central Italy that stretched from coast to coast. The number of cardinals increased, but they still served as advisers and legates.

There is, in fact, no limit on the number of cardinals, and there are no guidelines (that I know of) for the qualifications. All (or at least nearly all) of the current cardinals are bishops. That is a relatively recent development. In the nineteenth century, for example, Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli served as Secretary of State for Pope Pius IX, and he never even became a priest. One cardinal, a Portuguese prince, was only seven-years old when he received his red hat. He probably had to grow into it.

Nowadays, “cardinal” is considered a rank that allows the recipient to wear a variety of red garments and to vote for the pope. When a cardinal reaches the age of eighty, however, although he is still allowed to wear red, he can no longer vote for the pope. So, Pope Benedict will have absolutely no say in choosing his successor.

Well, I should probably amend that last statement to say that he will have no direct say in choosing his successor. Of the 117 electors, 67 were appointed by Pope Benedict. All of the others were appointed by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. Since these two popes had remarkably similar ideas on how the Church should be managed, it seems inevitable that the next pope will not favor radically different notions.

The cardinals have been choosing the pope for about half of the history of the Church. That policy was implemented in 1059 by Pope Nicholas II. Perhaps the most surprising fact about the history of the papacy is that prior to 1059 there was no established method for selecting the pontiff! Some popes were elected by the Roman citizens, some were elected by the clergy, some were appointed by kings or emperors, and there is no record at all as to how quite a few assumed the office. It was not uncommon for more than one man to claim the papacy, and the matter was occasionally settled violently.

For centuries the papal election took place in whatever city the pope had perished. The electors now always meet in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican to choose the new pontiff. This process is called a conclave, which means “with a key.” The cardinals and a few attendants (Pope Pius XII’s attendants were nuns!) are locked in until they come to agreement. In the past this process has sometimes taken years! The longest one was held in Viterbo, starting in 1268. In 1271 the cardinals finally chose a man (not a priest) who at the time was taking part in the ill-fated Seventh Crusade, but not until after the impatient residents of Viterbo had hired carpenters to remove the roof of the room in which the cardinals had been locked.

All who participate in the conclave are sworn to secrecy. There is no official record of any of the votes or of the process by which the decisions are made. The official explanation is that the electors make themselves open to the Holy Ghost, and the third person of the Trinity inspires them to choose the best man. Some information, however, inevitably leaks out from one source or another. A Jesuit priest named Malachi Martin was a Vatican insider for several twentieth-century conclaves. He claimed that Cardinal Siri was elected pope at two different conclaves. Circumstances allegedly forced him to turn down the office on both occasions.

The essential requirements for being pope are remarkably simple. Each papabile must be a male Catholic, but not necessarily a priest. Many popes were not ordained as priests until after they were elected, and one, Adrian V, never did become one. Incidentally, this certainly qualifies as one of the most inexplicable piece of papal trivia. The pope is, by definition, the Bishop of Rome. Every bishop must be a priest. Therefore, most people would conclude that every pope had been a priest. The lesson to take home is that when it comes to the papacy there is an exception to almost every rule, even the tautologies.

There is no age requirement for the papacy. Pope John XII was a teenager when he was elected in the tenth century. His father made the arrangements (by paying off Roman nobility) for his ascendancy on his deathbed. Pope Benedict IX was also very young at his coronation (yes, the Pope until recently wore a crown called the “tiara”). One monk reported that this Benedict was only ten-years old, but historians today think that he was at least twice that.

I don’t expect the current College of Cardinals to choose another teenager. John XII was evidently murdered by a jealous husband who found him in bed with his wife. Benedict IX, who was accused of equally deplorable shenanigans, was driven from the papacy, regained it, and then sold the office to his godfather so that he could get married. After being jilted by his intended spouse, he eventually regained the throne once more, but he was finally overthrown in a second coup in 1048.

I guarantee that the new pope will not be a woman. The legend of Pope Joan is not taken seriously by any historians.

I doubt that the pope will be married, but it is possible. According to the Bible St. Peter, the first pope, had a wife. Not only was Pope Adrian II (867-872) married, but he lived with his wife after he became pope! A few other popes may have also been married. Many popes fathered children before they assumed the office. Pope Alexander VI had at least eight offspring whom he recognized, and he continued his promiscuous lifestyle as pope, although he traded in his long-time mistress for a newer model. His predecessor, Pope Innocent VIII, may have had twice that many kids. Life was different in fifteenth-century Rome.

The new pope will choose his own name. This tradition was started by the above-mentioned John XII, whose real name was Octavian. Prior to that time popes continued to use their given names. We will get some indication as to the pope’s intentions by his choice. If he chooses Pius, Gregory, or Paul, you can expect him to continue the conservative bent of the last few decades. If he chooses some other name, he may be making some other kind of statement. Benedict XVI, for example, chose his name as a tribute to the two previous Benedicts, who were intellectuals, Benedict XV during World War I and Benedict XIV in the eighteenth century.

No one has ever chosen the name Peter. That would be a striking statement that the new pontiff intended to return the Church to its roots. Don’t hold your breath.