RunningWithBulls.com - The curse of Sanfermin

Anyone who knows me knows, I am not the most religious person, but I do know the impact the John Paul II has made on the world since he was ordained Pope in 1978.

During his life as Pope he has been deeply involved in the fight for human rights. Being a vocal critic of dictators (Pinochet, Marcos, and a line of others) he gave the normal people of Chile and the Phillipines some of the courage to rise up and overthrow those dictators and remove them from power.

Reported on a number of news sources, he was seen as a key person involved in the breakup of the communist power of Poland (he is referred along with Ronald Regan as key people involved in breakup of communism).

Even the man who tried to kill him, by shooting him twice, was forgiven and when visited by the Pope in his prison cell, saying “”How is it that I could not kill you?”

He also was a man who I did not particularly agree with some of his views, particularly on contraception and abortion. His outright refusal to discuss the matters were not taken well by many people.

His view on women’s place in the church was any but modern and forward thinking. Women were not to be in place of power in the Catholic church. This seemed at odds with his modern thinking on other matters.

But from reading about his life, it seems that he is a pope that the church has been waiting for, for a number of years. He belives what he believes because of his convictions. That is something you have to respect.

You may not agree with him, but he says this because he firmly believes in what he says.

On a side note, InformationWeek are reporting that the Vatican website is finding it difficult to keep up with the deluge of visitors to their site.

According to analysis by Netcraft, a U.K.-based Web metrics vendor, the Vatican’s Web site has been unavailable to as much as 13 percent of the people trying to access it Friday. Wait times — how long before the Vatican’s home page loads — also rose precipitously from Thursday, often running as high as 20 seconds.

Dynamically-updated graphs of the Vatican site’s availability can be found on Netscraft’s site.

May he go quietly, and may be rest in peace.

Update:
Tom and I have been having a bit of banter on this. I really don’t think that the Vatican has changed their views on euthanasia. Not for one minute.

But, after seeing how they handled the Pope’s decision on not going to the Gemelli, maybe they will. But I seriously doubt it.

The only thing you can say is that, I am sure he had the best of medical assistance with him in his apartment. Alot more that could be said for Terry Shiavo, if she had been able to decide on staying at home or not.

I don’t think its as clear cut. The two people are completely different, not alone fiancially.

I think the Pope made the correct decision with regards him staying at home. And I think Terry Shiavo’s husband also made the right decision.