Pope John Paul II and individualism were often antithetical. What Neal Ascherson calls Karol Wojtyla’s “gift of imparting to each member of a crowd a sense of being recognised as a unique and irreplaceable individual,” I call the gravitational pull of the politically powerful papacy from which he imparted an archaically frigid and insufferably patriarchal conscience mere mortal practitioners pay lip service to but rarely, if ever, come close to mirroring. Catholicism endures due the confessional and the hubris of those who claim no need for it, as despite the guilt trip, in or out of the order few banish intercourse to the realm of procreation. His bitter legacy are the countless who continue to suffer needlessly because he denied them spiritual and physical access to protections against preventable death and disease. The “free world” where his impact was “weakest,” according to Ascherson, is a real world politik where the act of free will is not a privilege bestowed by populist icons and indoctrination into autocratic religions divorced from the human condition is not the stagecraft of liberators.
Pope John Paul II’s most liberating efforts continue to be ignored by the same people who wield his worst as if scripture. In its rejection of the excesses of political capitalism his scholarship was revolutionary. His commitment to solving global crises peacefully was unshakable. That George W. Bush must now weigh the benefits of a photo-op in Rome against giving full-court press to the many reasons he is a poster child for what Pope John Paul II found wrong with Western society is a remarkable achievement. If denouncing those who cherry-pick his teachings means I am the same sort of hypocrite at least erring on the side of life is my legitimate excuse.
Updated @ 15:31 4/3/04: Just found more references to The Pope and Capitalism (article I linked to earlier) here and here.