POPE JOHN PAUL II
(1978 - 2005)

The Supreme Pontif of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II, continually stived to improve the quality of life on earth for all people. His preachings reflect that, as he summons the world's 1 billion Roman Catholics, to "resist crimes crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize." He preaches peace, love and care of the poor. These are fundamental human endeavors that make life worth living by everyone rich and poor.

However, the pope has made one critical error, and that is his opposition to the use of artificial birth control. As a result, the Catholic hierarchy opposes the reduction of the number of babies by couples who wish to enjoy the pleasures of sex without fear of unwanted pregnancies. The reasons for his resistance to the use of birth control apparently is based on the teachings of the Archbishop Wojtyla seen below.

POPE PAUL VI (in white)
and ARCHBISHOP WOJTYLE (left holding beads)

"One of the greatest crises in the Roman Catholic Church occurred in the 1960s over the issue of birth control. The "pill" had come on the market and, in response, Pope Paul VI established a commission of experts to advise him on whether the church should modify its traditional opposition to contraception.

After seven years of deliberation, a majority of the physicians, theologians and bishops agreed that the church could and should permit married couples to use contraceptives in order to space and control pregnancies. But a small minority vehemently disagreed, saying this would undermine marriage and the moral authority of the church. One member of the commission, curiously absent during the final vote, was the young Archbishop of Cracow, Karol Wojtyla.

Humanae vitae was among Wojtyla 's preferred preaching topics.. Actually, Wojtyla was a drafter of the encyclical, a fact that has never been publicly disclosed.

Meaning "On Human Life," Humanae vitae is essentially the papal condemnation of abortion and artificial means of contraception, such as birth-control pills, as violations of Christian teachings. The ban on contraceptive devices is the most controversial aspect of the encyclical. It is assumed, even at the Vatican, that the majority of Catholics do not observe ban on artificial contraception.

It is likely that Wojtyla's book on sexuality, "Love and Responsibility," which argued that artificial contraception degrades women, was either read by Pope Paul or summarized for him after the French and Italian language editions were published late in 1965. In the years when Paul was deciding what to say about contraception, Wojtyla is known to have met frequently with the pope. It was also in this period that Paul elevated him to the cardinalate. Wojtyla had been working quietly in Krakow on the draft of the encyclical. He organized his own Krakow commission on birth control matters, which prepared materials for Humanae vitae and forwarded it directly to the pope. A Polish theologian who worked with Wojtyla says that "about sixty percent of our draft is contained in the encyclical."

Kenneth L. Woodward,
Newsweek, April 10, 1995

The concept that "artificial contraception degrades women" by Archbiship Wojtyla is such a terrible misconception and a contradiction of the realities of the world. It is an artificial fantasy built on contorted reasoning and even worse, it is wrapped in the tapestry of piety and in the name of God. To be sure, the birth control pill cannot be taken by a minority of women for health reasons, but the blanket statement that birth control degrades women is patently absurd.

First of all, using some sort of reliable birth control device frees a woman to enjoy sex fully without the threat of repeated pregnancies. That is not degrading women, it is just the opposite. It is not up to men to define how women should use their bodies, that is for each woman to decide for herself. For women to be able to use artificial birth control methods is their right, and laws protecting that right shows respect for women and does not degrade them as Wojtyla would want you to believe. By the way, the very best form of birth control is the vasectomy, a responsibility of the men and that method hardly "degrades women." It is difficult to understand how a man like Archbishop Wojtyla can be so irresponsible and use the church as a platform to spread such despicable and destructive philosophies.

Secondly, for the pope to accept Wojtyla's ideas and impose them on the poor people of this planet runs completely counter to his plea for a world of life, not a "culture of death." The result of his Evangelium Vitae will be a culture of death by default. There are good reasons to resist abortion, for it is not a rational means of birth control in any sense of the word. Abortion is the last desparate resort to prevention of an unwanted birth which should have been prevented by some sort of birth control method. Murder, terrorism and war kills far too many innocent victims and should be attacked as evil. But to reject the use of artificial birth control invites ever increasing acts of abortion, suicide bombings and murders by desparate peoples of the world. In fact unbridled population growth invites an uncontrollable castastophe of epic proportions. Unfortunately, Pope John Paul II accepted the wildly optimistic fantasies of Julian Simon which further adds to a world of destructive confusion.

POPE BENEDICT XVI
April 2005

And now we have another pope to influence millions of people. Pope Benedict XVI takes over the throne of St. Peter with a fierce, overarching defense of absolutism against relativism in doctrinal matters - of any kind. In otherwords, this pope has the absolute truth at his fingertips and intends to pass it down to us lower forms of life. He knows the mind of God, and he will tell us what is right and wrong even if it means a world population explosion of biblical proportions, creating a catastrophe of unimaginable tragic consequences of death by starvation and plague. His is the so called "culture of life", and like the fundamental christians of the United States, their "culture of life" includes that time between fertilization and birth as well as those who are brain dead. The rest of the time, people must simply pass through a veil of tears to reach the hereafter (from which no one has ever returned).