Some Thoughts:

...on the death of a man who was called "Pope"

    By Jack Grant

When CNN International was reporting on the masses viewing the body of Pope John Paul II this past week, they had in their bottom "headline bar" (I don't know what else to call it, right above the ticker, but at the bottom of the screen, summarizing the images on the screen for those with the sound turned off I expect) the text, "Adoration of John Paul II Continues".

The choice of the word "adoration" disturbed me, possibly because of how it was used in the context of the churches I attended as a child.

I looked up "adoration" at dictionary.com and received this result:

ad-o-ra-tion (noun)

   1. The act of worship.
   2. Profound love or regard.

The first definition was the one I was most accustomed to from my history with religion, with my take on the second definition reserved for an extraordinary romantic love that is rarely felt and even more rarely expressed.

Hence my discomfort in the use of that word for the viewing by masses of people of a dead body.

Now, another fly in the ointment of recent amity in matters religious engendered by the death of Pope John Paul II, ironically arising because of an issue that he did not properly address, whether due to illness or from an unwillingness to see the greater harm I cannot say:

A support group for sexual abuse victims has condemned a decision by the Vatican to choose Cardinal Bernard Law to lead a Mass for Pope John Paul II.

Cardinal Law resigned as Archbishop of Boston in 2002 following accusations that he covered up sexual abuse of children by priests.

Members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests are flying to Rome to protest at Monday's service.

Cardinal Law is scheduled to lead one of nine memorial Masses in Rome.

The decision to have Cardinal Law lead a Mass for the recently deceased Pope is mysterious to those of us not members of the Catholic Church, and possibly to those members not "in the know" of the politics behind the decision.

It would seem obvious to those of us on the outside that this is an issue easily avoided.

Apparently not.

Sources in the Church say the decision on Cardinal Law probably only reflected the importance of his current post as archpriest of St Mary Major Basilica.

Cardinal Law is also eligible to vote for the new pope.

Pope John Paul II was an extraordinary man, put in an extraordinary position, in an extraordinary time. That convergence resulted in the ordering of history in a manner that may have ultimately resulted in less bloodshed than would otherwise have occurred in the inevitable fall of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe.

Despite this convergence, however, he was still a man, with all the flaws that go with the legacy of being human.

Flaws that exist in the Church he was the titular head of for so long, flaws that continue today.

We are all flawed, bad goes with the good, just as good goes with the bad.

We should choose very carefully who and what we choose to "adore", and when we choose to do so.

Posted by Jack Grant at 00:19 on 10 April 2005