Lots of attention to the legacy of John Paul II in punditland today, but none with more punch than
Nicholas Kristof, who points out the hypocrisy in praising JPII, particularly on the world's lack of action on Darfur:
"Throughout the West, John Paul's witness reminded us of our obligation to build a culture of life in which the strong protect the weak," Mr. Bush said. Well, what about that reminder? What kind of a "culture of life" is it that allows us to shrug as Sudanese soldiers heave children onto bonfires?
The latest estimates, from the British government and others, are that 300,000 or more have perished so far in Darfur. Mr. Bush has forthrightly called this slaughter "genocide," but he has used that label not to spur action, but to substitute for it.
More Kristof, and more pundits below, including:
- Clarence Page on prospects for a third-world pope
- Derrick Jackson on John Paul II's warning to Bush
- Scot Lehigh on Ed Rendell's critique of Kerry's campaign
- Harold Meyerson on what brings orthodox Jews, Christians and Muslims together
- And a cartoon today you'll really love (I promise)
U.S. State Dept photo of burned village
Kristof, continued:
These days the Sudanese authorities are adding a new twist to their crimes against humanity: they are arresting girls and women who have become pregnant because of the mass rapes by Sudanese soldiers and militia members. If the victims are not yet married, or if their husbands have been killed, then they are imprisoned for adultery. [...]
If there is a lesson from the papacy of John Paul II, it is the power of moral force. The pope didn't command troops, but he deployed principles. And it's hypocritical of us to pretend to honor him by lowering our flags while simultaneously displaying an amoral indifference to genocide.
Must read this column. There's a direct account of a young woman raped and then ostracized by her family and village.
It's tempting to post some HELP DARFUR links, but it's frustrating. Even the aid agencies are wringing their hands:
"We're proud of what we do," said Kenny Gluck, the operations director based in the Netherlands for Doctors Without Borders. "But people's villages have been burned, their crops have been destroyed, their wells spiked, their family members raped, tortured and killed - and they come to us, and we give them 2,100 kilocalories a day." In effect, Mr. Gluck said, the aid effort is sustaining victims so they can be killed with a full belly.
Pontiff from another continent?
Wondering if the cardinals might choose the first pope from outside Europe in over 1500 years, the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page looks at some of the possible popes from the developing world:
The five most often mentioned candidates from the developing world are Nigerian-born Cardinal Francis Arinze, 72; Cardinal Claudio Hummes, 70, of Brazil; Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, 62, of Honduras; Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, 68, of Argentina, who has Italian ancestry; and Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, 62, archbishop of Mexico City.
Each is known to be an advocate for the poor and against corruption in government, yet also is a strong conservative on Roman Catholic doctrine. Issues such as marriage for priests, artificial birth control, rights for homosexuals, an expanded role for women in the church or a crackdown on sex abuse committed by priests have not been high agenda items for these clerics.
Arinze, for example, who could be the first African pope since Pope St. Gelasius I led the church from 492 to 496, stirred a small walkout during a speech in 2003 at Georgetown University when he said the institution of marriage is "mocked by homosexuality." He also lashed out at "an anti-life mentality as is seen in contraception, abortion, infanticide and euthanasia."
While many consider Maradiaga to be less rigidly conservative than other Latin American clergy elevated by Pope John Paul, the cardinal also is remembered for accusing American media in a 2002 interview of covering the church's pedophilia scandals "with a fury that reminds me at times of Diocletian and Nero [two Roman emperors] and more recently of Stalin and Hitler. The church should be free of this kind of treatment."
To be fair, popes, like U.S. Supreme Court justices, have a way of surprising us. Once they assume their respective thrones, they often turn out to be far more conservative or progressive than expected. It is possible that any of these gentlemen might enter the papacy as a conservative caretaker and turn out to be the biggest reformer since the Second Vatican Council.
John Paul's warning to Bush
The Boston Globe's Derrick Jackson recounts John Paul II's efforts to dissuade Bush from attacking Iraq:
Just before the war, the pope sent an envoy, Cardinal Pio Laghi, to ask Bush to exhaust every last means of diplomacy and work through the United Nations for a peaceful solution. The Vatican called the war illegal and unjust. But before the cardinal even touched down in Washington, the administration said the meeting would not matter. The White House countered the pope's claim that an invasion was unjust with apocalyptic visions of needing to stop a Hitler.
After Bush gave his 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam, the Vatican warned that ''whoever decides that all peaceful means under international law have been exhausted is assuming a grave responsibility before God, his conscience, and before history." Secretary of State Colin Powell responded by saying, ''We understand the Holy Father's concerns, but sometimes issues come before us that cannot be avoided because we are peace-loving and we hope they'll go away."
Rendell on what went wrong last fall
Scot Lehigh listens to Ed Rendell's latest musings on politics:
The fault, he says diplomatically, goes more to the political consultants than to the candidate.
In some ways, he says, Kerry ''was a terrific campaigner, but he followed the consultants' advice, and that's dangerous." I saw the consultants take Al Gore from the best debater, who destroyed Ross Perot, and turn him into somebody that George Bush stomped on."
Beyond that critique, Rendell says Democrats must repackage their message. The party shouldn't be pro-gun control but, like every law enforcement organization, anti-assault weapon, he tells the audience. It shouldn't let itself be seen as enthusiastically proabortion but rather as concerned with keeping the government out of personal decisions, even while working to reduce the incidence of abortion. That, he notes pointedly, is a position he articulated well before Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose search for common ground on abortion has fueled talk of her own national hopes.
Asked later about gay marriage, Rendell offers this: ''We're for civil unions because we believe individuals should have the same rights and benefits, but we are not for marriage, because we believe marriage has religious connotations. . . . But civil unions would grant gay Americans all of the rights and privileges that heterosexuals can obtain by marriage."
Hate will bring them together
Harold Meyerson writes about the common hatred for homosexuality that brought orthodox Christians, Jews and Muslims together in the Holy Land:
At first glance, it looked to be a triumph of the human spirit. There, at a joint news conference last week in Jerusalem, stood the patriarchs of the rival faiths of the Middle East -- Israel's chief rabbis, the deputy mufti of Jerusalem, leaders of the Catholic and Armenian churches -- Jews, Muslims and Christians, together at last.
And the cause that had united them? A gay pride festival scheduled for August in Jerusalem. The leaders of religious orthodoxy had come together to help ban the festival. Interreligious harmony reigned as historic enmities gave way to a common loathing of homosexuals.
Today's cartoon
From Mike Luckovich: