I know that today is supposed to be a day of mourning for the Pope and so those of you inclined to accept that may wish to find another, more reverent blog to read. But since this is my soap-box, and I don't always aim to please, here are my thoughts on this so-called 'historic' morning:
All week -- and especially this morning with the televized coverage of the funeral -- I find mys
elf fighting back nausea and irritation over the whole bullshit spectacle. I mean, really. I know Catholicism is a big religion. I also know that it is only one religion of many in a whole world full of religions. Anybody care that the vast, vast majority of the world *isn't* Catholic, and maybe don't care much about what this guy represented?
Obviously not the media. They sensed a big spectacle, and pre-empted every other piece of news this morning to show us gregorian chanting, crowds crying, and old robed guys performing mideavil rituals. They took every sacred, symbolic act at face value, they described the Pope as a 'servant of god' without any apology for blatantly endorsing theism. As an unabashed disbeliever in the tenets any sort of god mythology, ritualism, or religion, I am perhaps more sensitive to things like this than others might be, but whatever happened to a healthy skepticism? Whatever happened to the Enlightenment, and the 1960s, and all those periods of time where thinkers actually took a step back from religion, recognized the inherent, and often flawed assumptions that humans have always placed their faith in: all the wierd cave dwellers who made up rumors about guys they never knew, the believers in invisible beings, nebulous "energies" which (conveniently) no scientific instrument can measure, all the broken cosmological schemes invented to prove obscure religious doctrine, all the former "miracles" flayed by reason and historical knowledge. All the laughably human agendas furthered by ominpotent, all powerful beings. (These angels can dance on the rings of Saturn and craft whole multiverses with the flick of a finger, instead they choose to make appearances on a tortilla in Juarez just to give faith to a race of self-important monkeys who have outgrown the savannah...). All the cobbled-together texts of yore fashioned by corrupt institutions in a manner wholly forgotten by students who (conveniently) wish to focus only on the words therein. Words translated and mistranslated so many times by degenerates, illiterates, and people so downright ancient that we don't have a clue as to original intent or meaning. The cannibals who symbolically scarf down dead flesh soaked in wine and call it "sacred". The heaps of corpses generated in the name of love.
Ah. I love ranting.
Are we to let the media just parade around cloaked in phony reverence for a man whose views were controversial? I heard someone say that in a world where the religious faithful are often considered close minded, the Pope was a man who "opened dialog" with dispirate peoples of the world.
Pardon me while I puke.
Wasn't this the same guy who only accepted bishops who were: anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-sex, anti-condom, anti-masterbation, anti-fun, etc. etc. etc? I'll answer my own question: it was. The Pope was a conservative who happened to have an understanding of mass media. He was a dogmatist. He was inflexible. He wielded his muscle and spoke up where he saw injustice.
First of all, whenever the media calls something 'historic' I have to laugh. Being a historian, or at least playing one in real life, I can cover ever square inch of wall space in the Vatican with shit people thought would be a defining "historic" moment, something that would be forever associated with the generation.
A lot of things have happened during the past several decades of John Paul II's tenure, and nothing he did had much to do with any of it. Sure, he made a few public pronouncements, sure he became the most media-savy pope ever. Whatever.
The death of a man who was eighty something years old and had been dying of a terminal illness for years is hardly a "historic" event. Historic events are things that are unexpected and life-changing. More importantly, in order to be historic, they must be *remembered* and all anybody is going to remember about this morning's service is that it was a pretty nice send-off for a guy who did his job well.
But my ire does not end with a bunch of phoney reverence for a man who is really (or ought to be) a polarizing figure:
This morning I learned that Pope John Paul II has requested that his private papers be burned.
Let me repeat that:
This man, this paragon of virtue, of perfection, Christ's Representative, Mr. Perfect, wants his immortal words torched.
Why?
The newspeople very sympathetically agreed that this decision was to avoid "harming" anyone whom he has written about and "distracting" the world from the deeds he did in life.
Pardon me if that is a huge, stinking haywagon of [*cough*] bullshit.
There are ways around harming people who are still alive: just seal the records for 50 years. That's what the U.S. Government (in theory) does to sensitive records. After 50 years, people won't care who John Paul II offended.
The lessons to be learned from his papers could be priceless for all of the millions of fish-eyed fools out there who think that great leaders make their decisions in a vacuum, devoid of political or practical currents. He was a shrewd man, and a smart Pope, and yet he undoubtedly also screwed up. He probably ranted like I'm doing right now. He probably said peevish, selfish, stupid things. He probably even doubted his course from time to time.
In other words: he was probably human.
Thats what I think he's afraid of. He assumed that he was better than the rest of us through his piety and his 'humility' and the great, collective pretense that he somehow embodies something grander than the rest of us gibbering monkeys on the planet. His great living deeds should speak for themselves. For a man who prided himself on presenting a humble image, denying us access to the very things that made him human (i.e. his papers), rather than just a PR-sculpted image of Piety, is hypocritical. Not to mention arrogant. Besides the fact that burning one's papers is just plain beneath the dignity of the office he was entrusted with.
This is not to detract from his undeniable importance to many, many people. Its merely to suggest that the Pope is a construct. A symbol. Nothing more. That symbol cannot be divorced from the flesh that it occupies, and neither can it (or him, or the church) be given a free pass from scrutiny even on a sad day like today. Unless...of course...he/they/it are willing to grant the rest of us a free pass from our nonbelief, our 'sin', our desire to live and feel joy in ways entirely unrelated to how he/they/it think things should be.
So how's about it, Pope. I give you a break for being an arrogant, self-important hypocrite representing an ancient if fundamentally flawed human experiment in mass hysteria, and you show me some EARTHLY respect. You actually keep an open mind. No pretending that God's grace is my shield when I have no shelter from your scathing ojos.
I doubt that will happen any time soon. And for the record, I'll be saving my tears for when the Dalai Lama dies. There is a man for whom I reserve a great deal of respect, despite our differences, because he is truly an open man, and actually lives a life of humilty: not some parody of humility papered over autocratic inflexibility.
Still, John Paul II, I wish you well in Valhalla.