Karol Wojtyła

If yall haven't heard by now, Pope John Paul II has died. While I knew it was coming for a while, I guess you could say that my perception of reality has always included a Pope. And specifically, John Paul II. Its weird to know that someone will not be there forever, and yet believe that he will. I guess this is sort of what happens when you lose a parent.

I'm sure you all will hear a lot of things about him in the next coming weeks, good and bad. Probably starting out with his accomplishments set to soft "Wind Beneath My Wings" type of music until that gets so annoying that people start yelling about how he sucked in every way just to get it to stop. I really don't want to add to this, but I will tell you my perspective.

John Paul II wasn't really a reformer, in that respect he was pretty conservative. The Catholic religion is pretty much the same now as when he came in save for some minor technical changes. You'll probably hear about abortion, birth control, women's rights, etc. I've always been fine with this, my perspective is that your religion is your choice, if you don't like something then don't practice. The thing that this pope did that made me admire him so much was to respect other religions. More than any other pope he connected and worked with other religions rather than take an isolationist approach. He did this, you could say, without changing Catholicism to be like other religions, making his policy basically "We are Catholic and it is OK if you are not", something that is very close to my own philosophy, and something I wish other people would learn too.

Thats all I really had to say, but I will give yall this link which talks a bit about Karol before he was the pope.