Papa Ratzi is a good historian, as well as being a good theologian...and that predates his tenure as the Holy Father by many decades.
If you have any idea what the colonial powers did to the New World, to the African continent, and to (particularly) South and South-East Asia, you might sing a little different tune. It was the muzzies who captured the majority of the slaves, but it was the European colonial powers that exported those slaves. It was the European colonial powers that ransacked the world for resources. And it was the European colonial powers that left most of the world a mess (when it was no longer convenient to stay any longer)...that the US is being stuck trying to fix in many cases.
The US has, with the exception of the Phillipines, never been a colonial power (and we treated the PI very well, compared to any other comparison). His rant against colonial powers has nothing to do with the US.
Good thing he’s infallible, huh?
Only on matters of faith and morals and then only in a very narrow fashion. But when one considers how right JPII was on current events (looking retrospectively), even when not popular with us conservatives, it might make a person think about it a bit...
There are two sides to the colonialism story, Brother O’Malley.