Death for the Pope

[ethics]

At church on Sunday the congregation was asked to pray for the recovery of the pope. I have abstained from doing so. I hope that he will not recover.

-- <a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=128&ncid=742&e=9&u=/ucwb/20050209/cm_ucwb/deathforthepope">William F. Buckley Jr</a>.

Before you crucify him, read his reasons and I certainly agree with him on them.

[MNeedham73]

I don't disagree with Mr. Buckley either.

It's quite obvious that the Pope is in terrible health. The Parkinson's will eventually kill him. Not directly, but it will. From what I've read, even medications designed to treat it lose their effectiveness over time.

Demetia would be the big symptom of Parkinson's that would affect the Pope's duties the most, I would think.

It would be sad to see him performing mass and going off on some dementia-induced tirade.

He has stated that he has no plans on abdicating, so my example above could unfortunately happen sooner or later.

[ditch]

Of course Catholics would argue differently wouldn't they? He still lives because it is God's will and it goes against their church's philosophy to pray for the death of its leader or anyone for that matter.

The string pulling in the Vatican must have been going on for years without a lot of input from the Pope. He's been a lame duck for a long time but admired immensely by a lot of the flock I would imagine. He'll hang around for a while longer and continue to inspire the faithful and annoy a lot of non-Cs. Just like he's always done.