http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=128&e=12&u=/ucwb/deathforthepope
http://tinyurl.com/3n4al Death for the Pope By William F. Buckley Jr. At church on Sunday the congregation was asked to pray for the recovery of the pope. I have abstained from doing so. I hope that he will not recover. The seizure brought on by his dramatic trip to the hospital a week ago suggests the international sense of his indispensability. Pope John Paul (news - web sites) is a graphic figure in the lives of Catholics and many non-Catholics. He is, of course, a towering theological figure who has presided over the development of Catholic thought and practice for the 26 years of his papacy. He is a major historical figure, who began as a Catholic seminarian in a Poland subservient first to a Nazi overlord (they hanged him in Nuremberg), then to a communist overlord (nothing happened to him -- the communists are never prosecuted). From that scene he succeeded to the Holy See, where he was the symbol of hope and, after the communists fell, of triumph, distinctive in his bid for international recognition as a God-fearing man of good will. I remember him as he was leaving Havana to return to Rome. Fidel Castro (news - web sites) was there to recite the diplomatic amenities. The pope was standing on the gangway of his airplane and suddenly rain fell. As John Paul spoke under an improvised parasol, his three-minute farewell address evolved, in near-perfect Spanish, into a homily on water's purifying mission. All of Cuba watched on television, no doubt hoping, for an exhilarating moment, that Castro would melt away, Cuba shriven from the antipodal reign of a tyrant who came to power even before the pope did, and will outlast him. Unless it were to happen that Castro died tomorrow, and the pope a week later; but we must see through the blur of the rain to realities of the day, which are that the pope almost died the day that he was taken to the hospital. "We got him by a breath," one medico leaked the news, and another said, "If he had come in 10 minutes later, he would have been gone." The temptation is, always, to pray for the continuation of the life of anyone who wants to keep on living. The pope is one of these. In the past, he recorded that he did not plan ever to abdicate, that he would die on the papal throne. It is presumptuous, in thinking about John Paul, to suppose that in arriving at that decision he was motivated by vainglory. What exactly he had in mind we do not know, but can reasonably assume that he was asserting pride in physical fortitude, consistent with his days as a mountain climber and a skier. Perhaps there is an element of vanity there. Not many sovereigns leave the throne, except at the hands of embalmers. There is the further question, distinctive to the throne of St. Peter. To leave it before death can be construed as forsaking a mission charged by God almighty. That isn't the consensus of theologians. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican (news - web sites)'s secretary of state, said simply, "If there is a man who loves the Church more than anybody else, who is guided by the Holy Spirit ... that's him. We must have great faith in the pope. He knows what to do." What to do includes clinging to the papacy as a full-time cripple, if medicine, which arrested death by only 10 minutes, can arrest death again for weeks and even months. But the progressive deterioration in the pope's health over the last several years confirms that there are yet things medical science can't do, and these include giving the pope the physical strength to coordinate and to use his voice intelligibly. So, what is wrong with praying for his death? For relief from his manifest sufferings? And for the opportunity to pay honor to his legacy by turning to the responsibility of electing a successor to get on with John Paul's work? Muriel Spark commented in "Memento Mori": "When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality." That cannot be effected by the hospital in which the pope struggles. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease? Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts! http://us.click.yahoo.com/UwRTUD/UOnJAA/i1hLAA/wpWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> "[M]y ministry is that of servus servorum Dei." --Pope John Paul II (Ut Unum Sint, no. 88) "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it." --Matthew 16:18 Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Pope-John-Paul-II/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/