Pope John Paul II

There are many unkind things I could say about the late Pope John Paul II, particularly regarding his ass-backward views on sexuality, reproductive rights, and women. Yet I'll always admire his stern warnings about globalism and unbridled capitalism, which (along with his media-savvy papal tactics) will hopefully be his most lasting contributions to the Catholic Church. His most thorough theological examination of capitalism and development came in his 1987 encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis, which has this to say, even before the Berlin Wall fell:

There is no justification then for despair or pessimism or inertia. Though it be with sorrow, it must be said that just as one may sin through selfishness and the desire for excessive profit and power, one may also be found wanting with regard to the urgent needs of multitudes of human beings submerged in conditions of underdevelopment, through fear, indecision and, basically, through cowardice. We are all called, indeed obliged, to face the tremendous challenge of the last decade of the second Millennium, also because the present dangers threaten everyone: a world economic crisis, a war without frontiers, without winners or losers. In the face of such a threat, the distinction between rich individuals and countries and poor individuals and countries will have little value, except that a greater responsibility rests on those who have more and can do more.

Eleven years later, he visited Cuba, one of the few remaining communist states, and had this to say:

On the other hand, some places are witnessing the resurgence of a certain capitalist neoliberalism which subordinates the human person to blind market forces, and conditions the development of peoples on those forces. From its centers of power, such neoliberalism often places unbearable burdens upon less favored countries. Hence, at times, unsustainable economic programs are imposed on nations as a condition for further assistance. In the international community, we thus see a small number of countries growing exceedingly rich at the cost of the growing impoverishment of a great number of other countries; as a result the wealthy grow ever wealthier, while the poor grow ever poorer.

Well that's why this lapsed Catholic has been able to ignore the Pope's unfounded pronouncements on sex and contraception, in the hope that his consciousness of world poverty would one day bring him to his senses.

Anyway, we Minnesotans will always hold him dear to our hearts for that moment six years ago in St. Louis, when he was presented with a hockey stick. "So I am prepared to return once more to play hockey," he mumbled loudly. "But if I will be able to, that is the question. Perhaps after this meeting, I will be a bit more ready!" Upon which the infirm old man began hobbling off stage, paused, then swung his own cane in an imaginary Gordie Howe hook check.