the pope is dead

- - | 03.04.2005 16:02

"Who will ever be able to don the same epic splendour - spectacular and, in short, passionate, triumphant and sacrificial - in which John Paul II clothed himself?"

- Commentary in Italy's L'Unita

Karol Wojtyla, Holy Father of the Catholic Church, has died after a short but dramatic illness.

you will not be surprised to learn that the corporate press around the world is playing the death of this supplicant to wealth and power for all it's worth. there are some truly breathtaking examples of grotesque piety, hypocrisy and the sanctimonious destruction of truth through the disgusting language of sentimentalism. the catholic church is a testament to failure. its connections to wealth and power, it's vanity and corruption, can only be celebrated by travellers in kind. it has shown utter contempt. amongst world religions, it is not alone in its failure but the appalling spectacle of its "epic splendour" is certainly unique. the BBC proclaims this "a day of mourning across the world". not here. no, not here.

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Comments

Hide the following 14 comments

shut up u wanker!

03.04.2005 19:46

RIP dear holy father

sausage boy

PJPII

03.04.2005 20:15

applause please

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and just in case you were in any doubt

03.04.2005 20:39

"The body of John Paul II lay in state at the Vatican, Sunday, as the world paid homage. His death ended an extraordinary 26-year reign that remade the papacy."
- NZ Herald

that's a 'reign' you understand. a king thing. wealth, land power, famous mates, fawning acolytes, pawn status, vanity, good rags, lots of hunky jewelry, good healthcare, private chef, nice digs, lots of charity work. did i miss anything? oh yes, pious obits.

- -

03.04.2005 21:34

this is a field day:

"Millions Watch as the Pope Lies in Repose"

or put another way:

"Millions ogle corpse on tv"

friendly corpses are ok. dead foreign johnny's, or troops in caskets brought in by the back door, not so ok.

there could be more on this soon. please, more pope headlines.

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I billion Christians, where?

03.04.2005 23:13

The corporate media is going for a full monty with the coverage of this man's death. One of the most stricking coments I have heard so far is the claim that he was the leader of 1 billion christians. I wonder how did they came to this figure, maybe by counting the entire population of (so called) christian countries like Spain, italy..., but hold on for a moment, I have been bapticed and did my first communion but don't consider myself a christian anymore, my entire family doesn't follow the church either, neither my friends and the mayority of the people I know. Are we being counted as part of a club we don't belong to? I think so, and like us hundreds of millions of people around the world. The church is losing people by the day and the corporate media is losing credibility by the minute.

Most of the real christians today are from the developing world, but will the church chose a black pope next, think again!. The christian church is misoginist, homophobic, racist, elitist and as spiritual as giving coffe to a dying man for breakfast.

babilon

Re: and just in case you were in any doubt

04.04.2005 08:49

Yeah you missed the fact that he lived in a palace.
And as for achievements, he condemned millions of (unplanned) children to die of starvation and millions of people to die from AIDS.

bored of all the bollocks

Of course

04.04.2005 08:50

All religion is wrong but the Catholic faith is no more wrong than any other.

End all religious control. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Hindusim.

Free Man

The Pope has blood on his hands

04.04.2005 09:00

The Pope did great damage to the church, and to countless Catholics

Terry Eagleton's Article from todays Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1451484,00.html

TAFKAED

yes, we're milking it

04.04.2005 09:22

>>there could be more on this soon.

great juxtaposition here by the daily mail:

"Pope's funeral may hit royal wedding"

you couldn't make this stuff up. or could you?

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more bandwagoning

04.04.2005 09:27

"Blair postpones election call
Blair defers his plan to call a general election as a mark of respect."
- the labour party in house rag, the guardian

with respect like this you're better off dead.

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quick add up

04.04.2005 10:10

of those showing great piety and deepest respect for the catholic church at this mo-men-tous time:

tony 'butcher of iraq' bliar
rupert 'death by wrong turning' murdoch
lord 'keep em down' rotheremere at the daily mail

why's that then? money, power, a grand and friendly political power base. other issues which define the church, they're separate.

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as usual

04.04.2005 11:09

it really takes something to beat the trite, cliched and tritely cliched triteness emitting from the home of trite, the trite house:

"Laura and I join people across the Earth in mourning the passing of Pope John Paul II. The Catholic Church has lost its shepherd, the world has lost a champion of human freedom, and a good and faithful servant of God has been called home."

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ok, one last pope comment

04.04.2005 12:55

only accurate headline so far:

POPE JOHN PAUL II: In the End, the World Was a Stage

http://ipsnews.net/

much as he was a reactionary misogynist midas, the catholic position on homophobia and abortion are correct.

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he was a dictator

04.04.2005 15:05

His word was law to millions of people who did just what this human ordered them to do.

He served in office until his death. Dictators have/had less power than he did.

Martin