DEATH OF A GOOD MAN

I am back after a bad bout with a severe virus and I am glad to be back. There has been much in the news with the death of Terri Schiavo and the Pope over the last week and weekend. We will see a lot more about the Schiavo killing as this year moves along and people carefully look at how her murder was accomplished. Now, you already know that I believe it is alright o end the suffering of a person who is in a condition where they cannot get better, but it looks as if so much of her case was misleading that it will be difficult to know for sure whether or not she was even in a vegetative state as her husband murderer says, or if she could have gotten better as her parents and family believe. I hope that someone in the government will review the findings of the murderer’s assistant in this killing the medical examiner who refused to allow an independent investigator to watch the proceedings to make sure they were done correctly. This refusal alone should tell everyone that something is fishy in this murder.
The death of the Holy Father was in part very sad as he was a good man, who truly cared for the people, both rich and poor of this world and mostly the poor as he could relate to these wonderful people as he believed them to be. It was terrible that he had to suffer so long in these last few years as his Parkinson’s got worse and his health faltered.
I can say some things about the Pope as a fallen away Catholic, who left the church in part because it was becoming too liberal and I thought that a church that has to follow its members instead of the other way around is not a church with any conviction. I found Pope John Paul II to be a powerful force for being the Church and not changing to reflect the faltering morals of many of its’ members, which is at it should be in a church that purports to get its’ authority from Jesus Christ himself. While I have not returned to the church I have found his views on morality a great asset to anyone who wants to find some strength in their church leaders.
I know that Cardinal Karol Wojtla, as the Pope was known before becoming Pope. This young man was in Poland when the Nazi’s came in and he was arrested. Many of his friends died during that war and in the year’s after when the Communists controlled Poland, so he was a man who saw much death and destruction as the hands of true evil. He brought those experiences to the throne of St. Peter when he became Pope and they helped make him a man of the people around the world who were oppressed by evil men, whether they were dictators or councils of people, he knew that they were against God and he used his moral authority to help these people in these countries become free.
I have always found it very offensive that Ronald Reagan was given credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union, when in fact it was the Pope who gave the Poles, and then others the power to stand against the evil that they faced and allowed them to remove this yoke from their shoulders. If anything Ronald Reagan was riding the Pope’s coattails in the freedom that spread across Eastern Europe and not the other way around as many of Ronald Reagan’s stooges would have people believe. Perhaps history will finally get it right as they write the fantastic life of this “good man” It is that final thought that I have been left with after seeing the words spoken about this fallen Pope.
My father always said to me that the best that can be said of you when you are gone is that you were a “good man” and that would put you above titles, awards, or other signs that are put on a person after they are dead. Pope John Paul II was a “good man” in every aspect of that word.
I do have some quarrels with the Pope, but they are over practical concerns and not his stand on morality or what is right and wrong in the world as he had a rock solid belief in what God was telling him to do.
My concerns were the facts that the Pope and the church did not and have not come out for birth control and contraception which would aid in not over populating the world and would help in preventing the spread of AIDS in these unprotected people.
I am sure that we will all be reading and writing about this fine man for months and probably years to come, and that is a good thing. We can only hope that the next Pope can be half as effective as this Pope was . This should be a phenomenal funeral this Friday as leaders and people from all over the world gather in Rome to bid this leader a final farewell. I am proud that our President will be attending the funeral, because as we all know these two leaders did not see eye to eye on issues, such as Iraq and the war, but that they did see that governments can use their power to make the lives of lesser people around the world better.
Pope John Paul II should be home with his Father in Heaven as we write this article and may he have mercy on those in this world who say bad things or do evil, for his only response would be that he is sorry that he cannot be here to help put an end to those bad things and the evil men who still stride across this planet. We need more good people not fewer, so the death of this good man is a tragedy for the world. Blessed Be!
Daniel Carvel Kepler