A funeral, a wedding and...

Certainly Karol Wojtyla, Pope John Paul II, was a good man. The fact that
when he was a parish priest he counseled a young Polish couple who had
hidden a Jewish child during WWII to return him to his family (to his aunt
and uncle in America, since his immediate family had perished in Auschwitz),
shows the measure of the man. He grew up with Jews and had many Jewish
friends and remained faithful to them even when he was Pope, what a
difference from previous Popes. Also, he was not only the first Pope to
enter a Synagogue and visit Israel, but during his reign the Vatican
recognized the State of Israel. But, notwithstanding the pomp of his
funeral and the gathering of millions in Rome, the Catholic Church is losing
adherents all around the world, except in the poorest countries of Africa,
and in the US it is riven by the terrible sex scandals that have finally
come out into the open. The Church's teachings on homosexuality, abortion,
women and celibacy are completely out of step with the modern world.
In Windsor today Prince Charles is finally marrying Camilla Parker-Bowles.
How could any man prefer her to Princess Diana? The fact that he did so is
a measure of the man. He is shallow and without redeeming features, and
certainly does not deserve to be a King. The whole Royal family is a
disaster and should be dumped, let them earn their own living rather than
being kept by the State in an era of limited resources. Their castles could
earn more money for British tourism without their presence. When I was in
school growing up in England and at university I was anti-monarchist, and
received a lot of flack about that, being considered disloyal by many
people. Now about half the British population questions the need for the
Monarchy, and certainly there is an overwhelming apathy about Charles. It
is likely that Australia will finally reject the British monarchy and opt to
become a Republic like the US.
I suggest that the funeral of Pope John Paul II and the marriage of Charles
represent the watershed of these two ancient institutions, and that
heretofore they are doomed to decline. Since I am against any organized
religion and specifically against any religion that proselytizes, believing
that it has a monopoly on the truth, it is not surprising that I dislike the
Catholic Church. After reading about the history of Catholicism ("The
Kidnapping of Eduardo Mortara," in which Pope Pius IX kidnapped a Jewish
child, and "Hitler's Pope," about Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust) and its
relationship to the Jews I have absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for such a
morally bankrupt institution.
It might be argued that the very decline of these traditional institutions,
the loss of its Christian cultural basis and the loss of authority of its
traditional institutions like the British monarchy, has led to the current
moral bankruptcy of the EU. But, if that is the case then it is part of the
price to be paid for having retained such immoral institutions for so long.
In effect I would argue that the peoples of Europe deserve what they get. I
judge them from the point of view of their treatment of their Jewish
minorities, and I find them almost universally wanting, not only the
terribly anti-Semitic and murderous Poles and Hungarians, but the so-called
neutral Swiss and Swedish. They all actively participated or stood by while
the Holocaust occurred in their midst. The only redeeming feature was the
Danes and the Bulgarians as far as I am aware, and a smattering of righteous
gentiles here and there. It does little good to speculate "what would you
have done," the facts are that this is what they did, this is what they
wrought from their own culture. And anyone who compares the situation of
the Jews under the Holocaust to that of the Palestinians is utterly wrong
and dishonest.
It might be argued that the very existence of the Church, and John Paul II
himself, played a major role in the defeat of Communism and this was an
argument used by the Catholics to justify their cooperation with Nazism (the
so-called "bulwark against Communism" argument). However, that would have
happened anyway, under other circumstances perhaps. Now the West is in a
struggle with extremist Islam, including international terrorism and Muslim
settlement in the West. But, that struggle is spearheaded by the democratic
nation states, and organized Christianity and the monarchies are entirely
irrelevant to that process. The Papacy and the Monarchy of England are
embarrassing remnants of a shameful past.