The Pope has died!
 

It was just announced on the news that at approximatly 9:20 pm Italian time that Karol J. Wojtyla aka Pope John Paul II died. :(

*bows her head in silence even tho she's not even Catholic*

Wow! I went off to the bank for five minutes and I find out on Yahoo he's gone.

This is a sad day. He was a great man, to say the very least.

He was the greatest. Nothing will be the same again.

His pontificate lasted for 26,5 years. I'm almost 22. For me, he has always been in this world. Now he's gone.

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Thank you, Matt, for that touching video. We'll always remember Pope John Paul II as the pontiff who kept it real.

Oddly enough, he also had an Italian disco song dedicated to him, as well. He was truly a remarkable man.

I could not agree with his religion, I could not agree with what he said, but that man has done a lot of things for the christian community. Therefore I respect him.

Rest in Peace Karol J. Wojtila.

This is a really sad day , I really wasnt expecting this to happen

You weren't expecting it? I mean, German media was full of "Pope's condition gets worse"-reports for teh last few days.

So, I guess you just heard "Pope dead since 9.27 pm"?

this is sad. real horrible even though i'm not a big Christan follower :( it's sad to see him go. he's been very dedicated to his job and cerimonies, but now he's just.........gone.......

This is indeed a sad day...

I used to be Catholic, and though I'm not really one anymore (haven't considered myself Catholic for years) I still have great respect for him and what he has done with his time.

Does this topic really need an exclamation point?

One of the greatest men of our time has passed away...

I think this thread can respectibly be considered important news.


EDIT: Wait... what do you mean by exclamation? The title of this thread?

I haven't noticed yet if this thread has the exclamation point icon...


EDIT: Nevermind...

I'll always remember him like this:
http://www.damnhooligan.com/images/popedove.jpg

And however I may disagree with certain aspects of the Catholic dogma, I can only hope the next man they chose to lead a faith of one billion strong will be as steadfast and dedicated as he.

I mean it just seems like its making light of the situation "Hey the pope died!"

He was a horribly conservative pope but a good person in general. Rest in Peace Karol.

I didn't mean it to seem that way...it's supposed to be like.. "OMG! The Pope died!"

But then again I WAS waiting for the announcement....I kept on the same channel (MSNBC had a Pope Watch... which is how I found out about his death as soon as it occured :P) for nearly 2 days....Only to change it to watch TMNT :P

But that's the reporter in me....*shrugs*....Im not Catholic but I have Catholic ancestry....shell Im related to a couple Popes of the past....I admit the man never affected me in any way...But I can see how he effected people...and that's what fascinates me the most about him

It's gonna be rather interesting to see who they choose to be the next pope... we won't find out for like 2 or 3 weeks (There's a couple weeks of mourning then the Cardinals all gather in the Sistine Chapel and vote on 3 men)...To know how the process is done I HIGHLY recomend Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons"...

From what I've heard it's between an American, African, and Italian.

:o Wow. You are related to Borgias or other powerful Italian family of the past?

I hope we have an America Pope next. Can you imagine if we had an American pope? He'd probably be Pope Elvis.

(Someone had to say it)

Has anyone seen the list with the most likely candidates? Most of them are almost dead.

The next Pope? I think it'd be really good for the third world if the Vatican would follow the Nigerian bishop's wish: a black Pope from africa.

Yes... Im descended from all the royal families of Europe. No...Im not related to the evil Borgia's...

Im related to the 2 Medici Popes tho(Clement VII and Leon X)...distantly...thru Michelangelo Bounarati (distant cousin... :evilgrin: )...

Im directly descended from Guy of Burgundy aka Pope Calixtus II, he was Pope from 1119 - 1124.

Here's a pic of him:
http://www.albino-luciani.com/images/162.jpg

Im actually related more to a whole lotta Patron Saints... :P

Why exactly was the Pope John Paul II such a great man?

Maybe its because he reached out to mankind on a global scale. He blessed more people in his 27 years as Pope than all his 263 predecessors combined. He promoted religious tolerance and ecumenism, and was determined to lead his people in prayer regardless of his crippling physical ailments.

Anyone, religious leader or not, who devotes their lives to that gets a big thumbs up from me.

EDIT: vvvvv Amen, Barkworm.

But then again, this was the pope who travelled to Africa, to places where almost everyone was infected with AIDS and preached about the evils of condoms.
Don't get me wrong, this pope achieved a lot of great things, but just because he's dead we mustn't forget that he also made some horrible mistakes.

To be fair, he was following Catholic dogma when he said those words. He couldn't very well get up and say "Even though I stand for this, I'm going to encourage everyone to do the opposite of what I say." Yeah, this made him very unpopular, sure; but at least he stood for his convictions. Also, there is more to what he said than that, I'm sure.

But you're right, Barkworm, it is more than clear how that was BAD idea.

Surely if you have AIDS you wouldn't want to have sex, considering it's a deadly affliction and all. Although it would help stop the spread of it with unknown carriers (I heard hepititus C can go undetected for 3 months at first).

Do you think anyone ever called him 'The Poop' by accident?

But actually he didn't force people to have sex without condoms. Remember he also preached about premarital sex and marital infidelity - as he was Roman Catholic leader, for whom sex should be done only for procreating reasons. I'm not a devout follower but even for me it does make sense - if someone wants to follow Catholic dogma, then he shouldn't have sex before marriage or two-time his spouse, because the Church tells that so. And then condoms are not really needed for him, as he lives his godly and righteous life.

Why does blessing a certain number of people make you a great man?

As for what he preached, does simply espousing certain ideas make you "great"? If it is your professed convictions (and not your actions) that make you who you are, I think the Pope lays very low on the totem pole of character indeed. Anyone who leads or professes a Dogma (not a belief system, but an unchanging, ironclad doctrine of faith), whether or not it is one with thousands of years of history, has a hard time expressing any positively extinguishing character traits, IMO.

As far as his life achievements... well, to be as PC as possible: I don't think many of our modern (20th Century) Presidents were great men, and these were men not of ideology, but of practical leadership; leadership of what is currently the most powerful country in the world. The Pope, in my opinion, was a figurehead of a very cruel, irrational institution that has been rapidly declining in influence over the last few centuries.

IMO, its a persons actions that allow us a window into their character; seeing how the Pope was a figurehead who quite possibly suffered from severe alzheimers for nearly his last decade as Pope (leaving me with the impression that he really wasn't much more than a face for the church) , and that I see the dogma that he preached his whole life as baseless and hazardous to the lives of human beings, I asked what it was that made him a great man.


I am not saying this man was evil or dastardly, I am not privy to that knowledge. But when I hear people say, matter-of-factly, that "one of the greatest men of our time has passed", I have to ask: "what made him so great?"

I have seen or heard of nothing that could provide the Pope with such a distinction. Other than that, perhaps, he held a very powerful and ancient iconic role for an ideological organization. That, however, is FAR from distinguishing the man as "great" in my book.

To flip things on their head, I think Jim Carrey is a great man. Yeah he is a goofball that makes people laugh for a living, but he is also a man of strong convictions that displayed the strength of character necessary to make herculean leaps of achievement over the course of his lifetime. That, to me, is an example of greatness. Not of a PC politician who says what he can get away with while pushing the ideology of an antiquated institution with a long history of brutally cruel behavior.

Where was his principled stance against the rampant child molestation going on within the church? I don't recall any.

I wonder how many people really think of the Pope as a hero as a result of strong, well thought-out personal convictions, and others who simply go with the flow and nod in agreement when large numbers of people, logically or not, come to a conclusion.

It was Parkinson, not Alzheimer.

And check out:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...e/etc/bio.html

I know it's long but so was JP II life.

While I more than agree with what you're saying about his beliefs, achievements, the fact that he was just a figurehead for his religion and so forth, I think it boils down to one's opinion of what makes a 'great man' in a purely historical since. Yes, Jim Carrey is an awesome actor and man, but 200 years from now, its not his name that will grace the pages of our descendants' history books (well, unless he pulls a John Wilkes Booth and offs a President. Way unlikely.)

I think of 'great men' as those who had incredible influence on the world around them. Thomas Edison, Aristotle, Norman Borlaug, hell, I bet even Hitler would qualify if he wasn't such a douche bag. And while I think the Pope fueled a lot of AIDS-related douchebaggery and whatnot, I don't think that diminishes the impact he had on billions of people. To those billions, he was a great man. To me, he was... an old dude with a cool ass hat that I occasionally photoshopped into pictures with the Harlem Globetrotters. It's all a matter o' opinion. But, I respect those billion opinions and the fact that they respected him.

Thank you Robweiller for clearing that question up.

With that being said, I'm locking this thread before it turns into a brouhaha. Thank you.