nil de mortuis

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Apr 10, 2005

The U.K. Guardian's Polly Toynbee has an op-ed in dispraise of John Paul II that is remarkable for condensing the Leftist worldview into 1200 words of wrath. Toynbee predictably scores the hierarchy for its approach to the sex abuse scandal -- in which reproach she stands inside Christian teaching -- but then moves on to what really shivers her timbers, arguing that the Church

thunders disapproval of sex in every other more innocent circumstance, blighting the lives of millions with its teaching on gays, divorce, abortion and unrealistic self-denial. There is no reckoning how many of the world's poorest women have died giving birth to more children than they can survive; contraception is women's true saviour.

In 1971 I interviewed Mother Teresa and asked how she justified letting starving babies be born to die on Calcutta streets for lack of contraception. She said sublimely that every baby entering the world was another soul created in praise of God, even if it lived only a few hours. She was never keen on cures: suffering was a gift of God that enabled those who cared for the afflicted to demonstrate their love. She was beatified by John Paul II for their shared religious mania.

Got that? The Pope and Mother Teresa want more human misery, according to Toynbee, so as to have opportunity for compassion. A deep thinker. Naturally, she has no patience with mewling progressivists inclined to overlook the Pope's refusal to approve condom distribution to combat AIDS.

He was a good, caring man nevertheless, they say, as if it were a minor aberration. But genuflecting before this corpse is scarcely different to parading past Lenin: they both put extreme ideology before human life and happiness, at unimaginable human cost. How dare our prime minister go there in our name to give the Vatican our approval for this? Will he think of Africa when on his knees today? I trust history will some day express astonishment at moral outrage wasted on sexual trivia while papal celebrity and charisma cloaked this great Vatican crime.

Careful, Polly my dear. Keep up that line much longer and you'll end up Professor of Law at Georgetown.