And buried too.
Well, another relic of the days of Authority has gone to his sulphurous reward and good riddance.
I refuse to join in the chorus admiration for a man who caused so much harm simply by doing nothing. One need only look at the number of children who were raped on his watch, by his priests, and when the scandal came to light acted to protect the Cardinal who most aided those priests.
But the interesting thing is that the people who call this creature “great” forget that he was ultimately a great failure. He played a minor role in the fall of the Soviet Empire and when it comes out just how minor a role he played some folks will be truly embarrassed. Other than that, he was just a foreigner in a funny costume skiing down the dome of St. Peters and making statements that no one of any intelligence in the civilized world paid any attention to. After all, just because he could pack a stadium did not mean that one less couple used artificial birth control.
In the end, he ran into an orthodoxy far more powerful than any he could represent—the orthodoxy of the free market and the desire of people to be free in their own lives of external control. On those walls, his peculiar brand of state socialism and antiquated dogma dashed themselves to pieces.
But he’s gone now, buried in three coffins to make sure he stays buried, and the red-beanied clowns will gather to pick one of their own to wear the jester’s tiara. And lacking the capacity to please crowds and ski, this new one will show the papacy and all it stands for to be what it is, an empty, ceremonious shell, a corpse rotting in its own history.
He will be an impossible act to follow.