You Tell Us:
What do you think of Pope John Paul II's record, and what are your hopes for the next Pope?

The mainstream media has celebrated Pope John Paul II as a universally loved and successful pope. Among Christians, however, his record has often been controversial. His long reign effectively put aside most of the progressive proposals of Vatican II. Here's your chance to review his legacy, and make suggestions for the next Pope.

Submission guidelines: please keep your messages relatively short - no essays, please. We highly recommend that you sign with just your first name, and the city where you live. If you are an American, it would be interesting to know how you voted. We'll update this page regularly as letters come in. Please come back soon to read more of this debate. Thanks very much for joining in!

Click here to send your message. It will be posted within 24 hours on this page.

Not sure where to start? Try reading other people's messages. Or, to read Reverend Dr Cheri DiNovo's thoughts and reservations about the Pope's legacy, click here.

When The Pope Speaks

When the Pope speaks, ex cathedra,
he's no longer the man he once was.
Nothing He once said matters anymore.
Everything He says now is infallible.
If you can't accept this, you aren't
a Roman Catholic in good standing,
even if you kneel to the Papal tiara,
bow to the old archepiscopal crook.
You must cut the Pope infinite slack.
If you don't, you're excommunicated.
Say no more. He's deaf to you, now
that you're spiritually dead to Him.

Note: every Vatican strategist (clerical/not) claims the media are deliberately misrepresenting the new Pope. George Weigel, interviewed on MSNBC-TV Sat. nite, 23 APR 05, when asked whether the new Pope is 'God's rottweiler' rebutted: "Reiterating Catholic doctrine is merely being a good, believing Christian; frankly, I don't see where this cartoon that is being reiterated everywhere by the media is coming from. I've known him for many years and he is nothing at all like that."

Weigel deliberately didn't directly answer to the new Pope's ultramontane authoritarianism (Rom ueber alles), which has been well documented for decades, so that when the media quote the pope's own words, they're told they don't count because they were spoken/written before becoming Pope, when actually, they are very reasons why he was elected Pope, his bona fides, then & now.

Since temporal cause & effect are officially meaningless in Roma Aeterna, out of passive courtesy, the Vatican expects they mean nothing to the media & to you, too. Its "Give the New Pope a New Chance" propaganda campaign is double-distilled Vatican-doubletalk, utterly faithful to is its 'eternal' essence. -Bill Costley

-Bill Costley , California