Tag: Pope John Paul II

Don’t Deify Jimmy Carter

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Jimmy Carter, out of office, had the courage to call out the “abominable oppression and persecution” and “strict segregation” of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” He dedicated himself to monitoring elections, including his controversial defense of the 2006 election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and championed human rights around the globe. He lambasted the American political process as an “oligarchy” in which “unlimited political bribery” created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.”

Don’t Deify Jimmy Carter

The Soviet Union was asked by the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan to intervene to help fight against the Afghan mujahideen that the US was arming: Soviet-Afghan War

Carter, Charter 77, and Solidarność (Solidarity):

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Michael Parenti: Mother Teresa, John Paul II, and the Fast-Track Saints

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

During his 26-year papacy, John Paul II elevated 483 individuals to sainthood, reportedly more saints than any previous pope. One personage he beatified but did not live long enough to canonize was Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun of Albanian origin who had been wined and dined by the world’s rich and famous while hailed as a champion of the poor. The darling of the corporate media and western officialdom, and an object of celebrity adoration, Teresa was for many years the most revered woman on earth, showered with kudos and awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her “humanitarian work” and “spiritual inspiration.”

Michael Parenti: Mother Teresa, John Paul II, and the Fast-Track Saints

Red Scared: Revising history at the Victims of Communism Museum

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

“THERE IS NO WAY he is a victim of communism,” my partner quips, pointing to a photo of the late Pope John Paul II. We are near the end of our visit to the new Victims of Communism Museum, standing in an elevator-size lobby with photographs of “victims” screen-printed all over the walls. Among the many victims and honorees: Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, the Dalai Lama, Romanian writer Herta Müller, Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong, and Hungarian neofascist Viktor Orbán.

Red Scared: Revising history at the Victims of Communism Museum (archived)

How Steve Bannon Tried to Destroy Pope Francis

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

How Steve Bannon Tried to Destroy Pope Francis

Another role, geopolitical in measure, entails McCarrick’s diplomatic entreaties to China, having at one point worked with President Jiang Zemin (1993-2003) to normalize relations with Rome. (The Cardinal later played a role alongside Pope Francis in the diplomatic backchannel that led to President Obama’s opening to Cuba, much to the chagrin of the conservatives.) The conservative wing of the hierarchy seeks to revive Cold Warrior strains of rhetoric about persecuted religious minorities, a gesture synoptic with the neocon saber rattling towards Beijing. For example, Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong has links with the CIA-backed National Endowment for Democracy and previously expressed public skepticism of Pope Francis’ diplomatic overtures to the mainland. In contrast, the liberals have a much more nuanced and pragmatic approach, perhaps in part due to realization that, unlike the days of the adamant Polish patriot upon Peter’s Throne, it is very unlikely that an indigenous Chinese Catholic popular movement will dislodge the Communist Party in the fashion of Lech Wałęsa and Solidarność three decades ago. (Where the secular cynicism of the neocon militarist impulse diverges from the theological wishful thinking of over-zealous believers and clerics waiting on the divine intervention of St. John Paul II is hard to determine.)