Posted on 04/03/2005 6:39:58 AM PDT by billorites
Excellent post. Thanks for adding it.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
pinging you to a wonderful article about Pope John Paul II by Lawrence Kudlow and an inspiring history of what John Paul has meant to him in his journey into wholeness.
I have great respect for people in the public eye who can be this open and honest about their own journey and their struggle to overcome their personal problems. What a wonderful, inspirational article by Lawrence Kudlow.
I'm not a Catholic, but I am a Christian. I think Pope John Paul II was an excellent leader for the desperate age we have been living. Instead of giving in to the cultural changes, as so many urged him to do, he held strong to his faith (and to our Lord), as it says in Ephesians Chapter 6, that when you have put on all your armour, then stand. He did it well, as an example to us all, as Christ was also an example to his disciples and followers.
He stood as a religious symbol to all Christian faiths...to persevere to the end. God rest his soul in peace.
Wonderful column. Thanks for posting it. Kudlow was alluding to his own conversion on his show the other day. This answers some of my questions.
Lando 
Pope John Paul helped more people to appreciate what it is to be truly Christian, and Catholic. I believe that he did more to bring people of all faiths together than any Pope, at least in the last 400 years. He brought more people to appreciate religious faith itself than anyone in my lifetime, and many, such as Kudlow, have reexamined themselves and become converts.
Many "Evangelical" Christians who can set aside a prejudice against the Catholic faith have begun to realize that they have far more in common with the Catholic faith than they have with any other protestant faith.
`
Add my welcome to the many I'm sure you've already received in coming into the Glorious Catholic Church. Truely a grace to be appreciated on one's knees.
.
Have no Fear,
for you are all very dearly LOVED.
I love you entirely,
GOD loves you perfectly.
And since...
...things may not be what they appear to be in this life, for...
...there are things in life you see with your eyes and...
...in life there are things you see with your Heart
And since...
...LOVE is the Only Reality
And since...
...it is in your Loving and...
...being Loved in return,
...in your Heart,
...that you really do live on FOREVER...
...you cannot miss,
with LOVE.
Thank You very much.
Bump! :-)
As a fellow non-Catholic, I agree 100%. He had tremendous moral authority and always stood true to principle.
Words to live by. Words to preserve the human race. With the so-called end of communism's grip on us, Pope John Paul knew that evil was far from vanquished. In fact the threat of mass depersonification of human life has only gotten worse, and the longterm impact of our headlong rush to modernity will only being more tears, more death, more loss of freedoms if we do not stop to ponder their implications.
Pope John Paul confronted the worst evils of the 20th century, and perhaps that mankind has ever known. But were we listening? In Frontline's Millennial Pope, New York University professor Tony Judt said with resignation that John Paul will leave"no legacy of success in defeating modernity, and there will certainly be no sense in which he will have occupied the ground between absolute faith and modern nonbelief." However, Judt goes on to concede that John Paul did manage to "shape the conversation at the end of the millennium in a way no one else has." But I would argue that the seeds John Paul planted are just beginning to grow. One need only watch Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell II: Innocence to see a deep philosophical discussion being brought to the world of entertainment by a passionate artist who asks the question: what does it mean to be human when scientists are talking about replacing us with genetic engineering techniques, cloning, and cybernetics?
Msgr. LORENZO ALBACETE, Prof. of Theology, Friend: To the Pope, science and the wonder it evokes in us is not an obstacle to belief but a privileged path to it. John Paul II urges us to look beyond our intellectual ideas because reason, which limits man to the visible world, will kill faith. -- John Paul II: The Millennial Pope
The threat to man does not come in the first instance from the potentially lethal machines and apparatus of technology. The actual threat has always afflicted man in his essence. The rule of enframing (Gestell) threatens man with the possibility that it could be denied to him to enter into a more original revealing and hence to experience the call of a more primal truth. --Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning TechnologyThe world has awoken to the dangers of stem cell research, abortion, and the view of life in terms that attempt to quantify the value of life.
We can thank John Paul for asking us all to reject the moral collapse that only continues at an even more rapid pace with unquestioned technological progress. But is the impending danger unnoticed? Not by any means. Artists and philosophers are demanding the same caution demanded by John Paul. They warn us that science when used to transform mankind into gods can bring us down and destroy us without mercy. John Paul not only shaped the dialog over what it means to be human in a postmodern world where engineering can practically blur the lines between life and death, but the debate he urged is far from over. It has just begun.
He would again tell us: be not afraid.
You shall cross the barren desert
But you shall not die of thirst.
You shall wander far in safety
Though you do not know the way.
You shall speak your words to foreign men
And they will understand.
You shall see the face of God and live.
Chorus:
Be not afraid, I go before you always,
Come follow me, and I will give you rest.
If you pass thru' raging waters in the sea
You shall not drown.
If you walk amid the burning flames,
You shall not be harmed.
If you stand before the pow'r of hell
And death is at your side,
Know that I am with you - through it all.
(Chorus)
Blesses are the poor
for the Kingdom shall be theirs.
Blest are you that weep and mourn,
For one day you shall laugh.
And if wicked men insult and hate you all because of me,
Blessed - blessed - are you!
(Chorus)
Thanks for the link.
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