Is no one else annoyed by the presence of quotes around the words "Holy Father," as if John Paul II were not actually the Holy Father? Honestly, the level of infantile bad attitude implied by this is really quite remarkable. Perhaps there is a legitimate reason, I am not seeing, which would permit mature adults to behave so?
The quote was from a sedevacantist priest formerly of the SSPX. He believes (ridiculously) that the Pope is a heretic and hence deposed and no true Pope.
I did not place the quotation marks around the title Holy Father. I was citing a passage originally posted by gbcdoj. You will have to ask him why the piece he quoted carried quotation marks.
The sedevacantist priest was quoted by gbcdoj (see post #31), who was using the words of someone he does not agree with as if to demonstrate what his opponent must be saying. It's easy to get confused when you jump into one of these threads cold. If only we all had sufficent resources to read all the posts and answer the ones we are interested in!
You are correct in presuming that a mature Catholic attitude rightly acknowledges the office of pope and its current occupant. This is basic diplomacy. Even non-Catholic leaders are correctly addressed by their official titles. St. Anthony of Padua was known to face pagan kings and bow to them acknowledging thereby their royal dignity. In return, the kings respected him and what he had to say.
Today, even if someone does not believe JPII to be the real pope (I'm not one of them), he ought to say, "Holy Father," if he wants to be respected. But today, he also has to keep in mind that if he is wont to defend traditional Catholicism, he will find it most difficult to be the recipient of respect from JPII, whereas every form of non-Catholicism is apparently grounds for no end to JPII's gracious sympathies.
Go figure...