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   From: pedro1940@progression.net   
      
   THE GREATEST CONFESSION IN 2,000 YEARS   
   > By Jeff Jacoby   
   > The Boston Globe   
   >   
   > March 16, 2000   
   >   
   >     The Baltimore Catechism instructed generations of American Roman   
   Catholics that the marks of the church are four: It is one, holy, catholic,   
   and apostolic.   
   >   
   >     Comes now Pope John Paul II and adds a fifth: It is sinful.   
   >   
   >     "Lord God," the pope prayed on Sunday, "your pilgrim church ... counts   
   among her children in every age ... members whose disobedience to you   
   contradicts the faith we profess ... Forgive our sins."   
   >   
   >     To be sure, the pope was not technically confessing the sins of the   
   church itself, but those of "her children."  No matter.  The Bishop of Rome   
   was begging forgiveness for the cruelties and evils that have been done in   
   the name of the Church of Rome.  This was unprecedented, another milestone   
   in what has proven to be the most consequential papacy in centuries.   
   >   
   >     An abiding commitment to truth has been a hallmark of John Paul's   
   stewardship.  That was apparent from the outset, when he refused to mince   
   words in speaking about totalitarianism.  His challenge to the legitimacy of   
   the Evil Empire triggered the fall of Communism in Europe.  And that   
   challenge was fueled above all by a determination, as he put it, "to call   
   good and evil by name."   
   >   
   >     In his biography of John Paul II, George Weigel quotes a Polish   
   student for whom the pope's pilgrimage to Poland in 1979 was a turning   
   point.  "We might have to live and die under Communism," the student said.   
   "But now what I want to do is to live without being a liar."  Moscow could   
   withstand much, but not the pope's assault on the falsehoods that propped up   
   Soviet rule.   
   >   
   >     John Paul would have been a hypocrite if his passion for truth had   
   ducked the long history of Roman Catholicism.  It didn't.  For years, he has   
   spoken of the need for the church to search its conscience; in a 1994   
   apostolic letter, he made it explicit.  "As the second millennium of   
   Christianity draws to a close," he wrote, "the Church should become more   
   fully conscious of the sinfulness of her children, recalling all those times   
   in history when they . . . indulged in ways of thinking and acting that were   
   truly forms of counterwitness and scandal."   
   >   
   >     He has practiced what he preached.  In 1998, one scholar counted 94   
   occasions on which John Paul had confessed the sins and failings of   
   Christians, in matters ranging from the treatment of women to the treatment   
   of Galileo.  Since then, he has pushed the total well into triple digits.   
   >   
   >     The pope's plea for forgiveness does not, needless to say, undo the   
   crimes committed in the name of the church.  The Jews and Muslims   
   slaughtered during the Crusades, the innocents burned at the stake during   
   the Inquisition, the massacre of French Protestants on St. Bartholomew's Day   
   and in the Wars of Religion, the forced conversion of non-Christians -- the   
   agony of the victims is not lessened retroactively by John Paul's prayers.   
   Neither is the guilt of their tormentors.  "What's done is done," Lance   
   Morrow writes at Time.com. "The ashes of heretics burned centuries ago are   
   cold indeed."   
   >   
   >     In any case, genuine forgiveness can be granted only by the one who   
   was sinned against.  The Talmud teaches that God does not forgive the sins   
   we commit against others unless we seek their pardon first.  That is why   
   murder is literally unforgivable: How can a dead man absolve his killer?   
   >   
   >     All this the pope knew, of course.  Just as he knew that no confession   
   of the church's sins would be sufficient for the church's critics.  Sure   
   enough, scarcely were the prayers uttered last Sunday than the reproaches   
   began.   
   >   
   >     Some of these reproaches were the standard PC litany.  "The pope's   
   apology for discrimination against women is welcome but difficult to square   
   with his continued opposition to abortion and birth control, and to women in   
   the priesthood," editorialized The New York Times.  "Regrettably, he made no   
   mention of discrimination against homosexuals."  The pope, in other words,   
   should have apologized for being Catholic.   
   >   
   >     Other criticisms are not so easy to evade.  Why did the pope, many   
   asked, make no mention of the Holocaust?  The stony silence of Pius XII, who   
   spoke not a public word in defense of the Jews as millions were shipped to   
   the death camps, was a woeful moral failing.  Perhaps the explanation has to   
   do with timing.  Next week John Paul will visit Yad Vashem, the Israeli   
   Holocaust memorial; that will be the place for him to talk about the   
   reticence of the church during the blackest moment in Western history.   
   >   
   >     In the end, however, no amount of second-guessing can diminish what   
   this pope has done.  For centuries the church has claimed to be infallible   
   in matters of morals.  For centuries the church denied responsibility for   
   the brutality and slaughter committed in its name.  Yet now, on the verge of   
   its third millennium, all that is overthrown.  A staunchly conservative pope   
   has done something revolutionary.  John Paul "has struck a blow at the   
   forces of demonization within religion," says Richard Landes, a medieval   
   historian at Boston University, "and he has begun with his own religion and   
   his own institutions."   
   >   
   >     If the Roman Catholic church -- the most powerful, hierarchical, and   
   far-flung church in the world -- can confess its gravest failings, what   
   excuse is there for any religion -- for any *institution* -- not to do   
   likewise?   
   >   
   >     The pope's confession is a moral event of seismic proportions.  The   
   21st century will be shaped by its aftershocks.   
   >   
   > (Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.)   
   Aforismo Samurai: De nada vale que los demas digan que tienes razon, cuando   
   tu corazon pregunte, ¿que le responderas?   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)