The Frontline is frustrating because most of the assembled "luminaries" are with John Paul on the liberation of eastern europe, but they try to suggest that he "missed the mark" on liberation theology. The Washington Post's Roberto Suro is the smarmiest of the critics. It's the 100 year-old lie that Marxism is just a philosophy, and that Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were just misusers of it. Evidently the Pope wanted to work to solve the problems of poverty in Latin America within the pro-western governments rather than abetting the spread of communism to solve those problems. Frontline paints him as insensitive and inflexible. It's a shame, since the Pope knew full well that the ideology responsible for 100 million deaths in the 20th century would fare no better in Latin America.
Did you catch Chrissy Matthew's weird show yesterday on MSNBC? Admittedly, he was just off an all day flight to Italy, with no sleep. He was halfway between crying and disbelief on the Pope's passing, but then recovered to confront a guest priest about why the American Catholic church needed married priests, birth control, gays, etc. Then he started talking about cafeteria-style Catholicism, etc.
The priest effectively shut him down point-by-point because Chrissy felt he couldn't talk over him, like his usual guests.
That man is truly conflicted.
Barf. I was thumbing through Malachi Martin's "Jesuits" the other day. He related the story of one of the pope's visits to South or Central America in the early '80s. The pope was greeted by a priest who wasn't a Marxist and the pope said, "it's nice to know that not all of you are Marxists!"
Liberation theology is now discredited and waning thanks to the pope.