[aruanan]

If the pope's point is that God is sovereign and nothing happens apart from His will -- whether it be communism or Nazism or whatever other terrible historical event you care to recall -- I'll have to agree with him.

The view that God's will is causative so that any and everything that exists, including moral predispositions and outright sins, must necessarily be a result of that cause, God being the agent, is widespread. It is, however, heterodox.

[newgeezer]

God did not introduce sin into the world. But, He is not unable to eliminate it. In addition to His causative will, there is His permissive will.

But, don't forget, all of Job's terrible calamities were preceded by God saying to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job?"

[dangus]

Try understanding the Pope's statements in the light of the prophecies of Fatima, wherein Our Lady told the children that if the world did not repent, there would be a war that would overshadow even the terrible world war the earth was them enroiled in, and that Russia would turn itself over to the hordes of atheists and nihilists, and would spread its evil across the globe.

God is not the CAUSE of the evil, but he did PERMIT it, for the chastisement of his children who have disobeyed him. God permits evil because it is necessary for humans to be able to freely choose to follow him.